
MATOAKA 

POWHHll 
GINI^E * m 


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iTISS-PRINC: 
T^S - IMP -Vi R 


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MY* LADY * PO K A HON TH S 
WRIT* BY'HNHS 
WITH NOT6S* BY* 








































































oljn €sten Cooke 


VIRGINIA. In American Commonwealths Series. 
New edition, with additional chapter by William 
Garrott Brown, and with map. i6mo, gilt top, $1.25. 

MY LADY POKAHONTAS. A True Relation of Vir- 
ginia. Writ by Anas Todkill, Puritan and Pilgrim. 
With notes by John Esten Cooke. New edition, 
i6mo, $1.00. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York 


Mv ^ofea|jontas 


A TRUE RELATION OF VIRGINIA. WRIT 
BY ANAS TODKILL, PURITAN 
AND PILGRIM 


* 


IVitb emotes by 


JOHN ESTEN COOKE 


a 



BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
New York : 85 Fifth Avenue 

i&e Cambridge 

1907 

1 • 



T l* 


.dn^ 



Copyright, 1885, 

By JOHN ESTEN COOKfl, 

All rights reserved. 



I y-Xin i 



{ 

f 

PREFACE. 

Anas todkill was a brave and trusty sol- Preface, 
dier of the first Virginia years : adhered to 
Smith in all his struggles with the factions at 
Jamestown : took part in the fierce combats 
with the Indians on the York and Rappa- 
hannock : and his name is signed to a num- 
ber of the old <f relations ” as both actor and 
author. 

As to the writer's personality , the present 
MS. leaves nothing in doubt ; and as to the 
credibility of his historic statements, the notes 
will show that these are often minutely corrob- 
orated by the great original American author- 
ity, the €( Generali Historie of Virginia, New 
England, and the Summer Isles.” 

Even in the pages which relate to the love 
romance of two celebrated personages, — to the 
joys and sorrows, the passionate longings and 


Preface. 


iv Preface. 

regrets, which made up their lives, — the 
worthy <f Puritan and Pilgrim ” seems only 
to give the details of events and incidents 
briefly indicated in the contemporary chron- 
icles. 




TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGB 


I. Unworthy Anas Todkill, Puritan, his Early Years . / 

II. I talk with Captain Smith and Master Shakespeare at 

the Mermaid $ 

III. I go on the Virginia Voyage, and what followed at 

Jamestown 16 

IV. My Captain tells how an Angel saved Him . ... 25 

V. How I first see my Lady Pokahontas 32 

VI. The Strang p Antics of Pokahontas 36 

VII. Of God’s Mercy to his Unworthy Servant through the 

Blessed Pokahontas 45 

VIII. How my Captain loveth the Child of a Cursed Genera- 

tion 54 

IX. Hawks and Cormorants (so I call Such) 62 

X. I go once more with my Captain to the Place of Retreat 70 

XI. We lose him whose Loss was our Deaths 75 

XII. How Master Ratcliffe was a Dead Corpse on the York 

River 81 

XIII. We go through the Wilderness to the Land of Canaan 88 

XIV. How Some One did break a Poor Man on the Wheel . 94 

XV. How my Lady Pokahontas is brought to Jamestown a 


Prisoner 101 

XVI. I make Acquaintance of Master Rolfe /07 

XVII. I think, Sure *t is better to be off with the Old Love ere 

on with the New / / 5 




vi Table of Contents 

XVIII. IV e sail up York River with my Lady , and what fol- 

lowetb 120 


XIX. How my Lady Pokahontas asketh, — Must she ? . ,130 

XX. My Lady leaneth on a Tree and weepeth . . . . 777 

XXI. Of the City of Henricus and my Lady’s Little Divell 

that was made a Christian 140 

XXII. Of the Trick the High Marshal would play on the 

Emperor, hut he would not 750 

XXllL My Lady goes to England 156 

XXIV. I go to the Globe Theatre 162 

XXV. And meet again with Captain Smith and Master 

Shakespeare 7 6y 

XXVI. How Smith telleth he was not dead, and crieth, “ O 

Heaven ! could she not wait ? ” 775 

XXVII. Of the Valiant Captain Smith’s Last Greeting with 

my Lady Pokahontas . .» . 779 

XXVIII. How my Lady Pokahontas passed in Peace . . . 188 




My Lady Pokahontas 


i. 

Unworthy Anas Todkill , Puritan , his Early 
Years. 

HEN that blessed damozel, Howmy 
my dear Lady Pokahontas, 
died untimely, I fell into a 
great wonder at the mys- 
terious ways of Providence 
that put out that bright 
light of our time so sudden. Virginia had 
much need of her to bring her people to 
the knowledge of our Saviour. But she 
went away to heaven even at the moment 
when she was returning to her country, 
and her hope to have builded up a New 
Jerusalem in that Heathennesse had no 
fruit, but was buried in her grave. She 
had surely done her work to God’s honour 
and immortal glory ; natheless, ne’er was 
it begun. A pilgrim and stranger, she was 
called to the Land of Peace. When about 




2 


l serve in 
Transylva- 
nia . 


My Lady Pokahontas 

to set forth with her babe on the Virginia 
voyage, she goes on that other, from which 
none comes back. Sure her dear and 
blessed hands had overturned the Divell’s 
kingdom there ; but she is gone, and the 
frame of that great business is fall’n into 
her tomb. 

How it chanced that I, the Puritan Anas 
Todkill, came to love her, this true relation 
showeth the reader. ’T is but little I need 
say of my life before the Virginia adven- 
ture, wherein I saw what Master Drayton 
calleth “Earth’s only Paradise.” All the 
Todkills, methinks, from the beginning of 
the world have been Puritans ; and this 
Anas sees the light for the first time in 
Kent, England, and grows to boyhood, and 
learns to read, and a thirst seizes him to 
see the world. So he steals away from 
home and wanders off to the Flanders 
wars ; thence he goes and takes part in 
the fierce battles of Transylvania, where 
Duke Sigismund is fighting the murther- 
ous Turks. My captain was that dear and 
loyal soldier,’ John Smith, who was knighted 
by the Prince for slaying three Turkish 
champions in single combat, and, under 
that chevalier, we oft conquered. But the 
evil day came, as it comes at last to alL 


My Lady Pokabontas j 

At the bloody and dismal fight of the Ro- Back in 
ther Thurm fortune changed. The Chris- Kent ' 
tians did their part, and left their bodies in 
testimony of their minds; but the Turks 
overcame us, and I was cut down and lay 
past all sense and remembrance. 

That I lived was due to Smith, who 
dragged me out, and so I escaped ; he him- 
self was taken prisoner and sold to slavery, 
whereof may be read in his book what he 
suffered, and how he slew his foul tyrant 
and fled to Russia. So, the wars at an end, 

Anas Todkill is back in Kent, where he 
tells of his strange adventures, and thinks 
his peaceful days irksome. The happy hop 
fields and the maidens are not the fields (or 
maids) for him ; night and morn a voice 
cries, — 

“ Awake, thou that sleepest ! There be 
work in the world to do ! ” 

’Till at last there is naught left but to 
listen to that voice which will not rest. 

So I say to my old mother : — 

“ Bless your loving Anas, mother ; he 
must leave you for a season. England calls 
on all true Englishmen, and would have 
each do his duty: namely, rifle Spanish 
galleons or other work in God’s cause 
against the Divell.” 


4 


Anas his 
Pilgrimage. 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Thereat my dear old mother wept sore 
and would not be comforted ; but I, that 
was a man, stood steadfast, though nigh 
choking. 

So this mother and son clasp, and kiss, 
and part each with other ; and Anas 
Todkill turns his back on the hap- 
py autumn fields and goes 
forth with long thoughts 
on his Pilgrimage. 



II. 


/ talk with Captain Smith and Master Shake- 
speare at the Mermaid . 

S O I go away to London ; then as now imeetwi* 
the mighty heart whence the great s£ # 
pulsations drove the hot blood to the 
farthest lands, wherever floated the flag of 
England to flout the Spaniard. 

When I pass under Temple Bar, I see 
Fleet Street full of people ; most of soldiers 
from the wars of the Low Countries and 
Transylvania. They walk in long strides, 
rattling broadswords and twisting mus- 
taches ; each asking other what was com- 
ing for them in the new reign of his Maj- 
esty King James. I who had been to 
London and attended the theatres (though 
I be a Puritan) could see many Nyms and 
Bardolphs in this red-nosed crowd, and 
jostled against such. Sudden, a loud voice 
greets me, and a hand is struck in mine. I 
look up, and who should I see but that 
same valiant Captain John Smith, with 
bright eyes and long mustaches and beard 


His brave 
apparel. 


6 My Lady Pokahontas 

like a spade, I had last seen in Transyl- 
vania when I fell half dead there. 

The eyes laughed like the mouth that 
said : — 

“ Anas Todkill ! By my faith thou art 
welcome, comrade ! ” 

With which he puts one arm round me, 
his brave new doublet with rich slashes 
and gold lace rubbing up against my coun- 
try frieze. 

“ See the gallant ! ” I say, looking with 
lurking smiles at all this bravery ; “ the old 
soldier turned courtier ! ” 

“And fine gentleman, by my faith!” 
he cries, twisting his long mustache. “ Why 
not ? Duke Sigismund gave me fifteen 
hundred gold ducats at Leipzig, Anas. 
Hold ! there is your share, comrade.” 

Whereat he draws from his doublet a 
handful of gold which he would thrust on 
me, but I would not. 

“Well here is your Peru, comrade, when- 
ever you will,” he says in his gallant voice ; 
“and now walk with me, and tell me of 
yourself.” 

So we walked on together and begun 
a legion of old stories to renew acquain- 
tance. My own was soon related, and 
Smith then tells me how he was made 


7 


My Lady Pokabontas 

prisoner and sold to slavery, but killed his 
tyrant by beating out his brains, when he 
wandered into the desert, but got to Russia 
and thence to England. At Leipzig Duke 
Sigismund gives him the ducats and his 
patent of Knighthood. He pulls this out 
now and shows me it in Latin, and says he 
will have it registered in Garter King of 
Arms his office.* 

“ I have deeply hazarded myself, Anas, 
in doing and suffering,” he says, “and even 
the playwriters make relations of me.” 

“ The playwriters ? ” I say. 

“Yes verily, — is not that the Puritan 
twang, Anas ? They have acted my fatal 
tragedies on the stage and wracked my re- 
lations at their pleasure.” f 

“ Then the rumour has come hither ? ” 

“ Doubtless, since they make a play of 
me. But I owe them no great grudge. 
Never were better or gentler people than 
these play actors and writers. Even now 
I am going to meet one of them, Master 
Will Shakespeare, who seeks speech with 
me. Will you go also ? ” 

* It was registered there, but not until afterwards, August 19, 
1625. The patent signed by Sigismund Bathori at Leipzig in 1603, 
just before the meeting with Todkill, is given, in the original Latin, in 
Smith’s True Travels and Adventures. It is also found in the 
Harleian MSS., in the British Museum. 

* Smith makes the same statement in the same words in the 
dedication of his True Travels to the Earl of Pembroke. 


He tells of 
bis adven- 
tures. 


At the 

Mermaid 

Tavern. 


8 My Lady Pokahontas 

Thereat I laughed and cried : — 

“Go see a writer of plays ! I, the godly 
Anas Todkill ? ’T is sure a snare of Satan. 
Thou wilt take me to some tavern.” 

“To the Mermaid , ’” 

“The haunt of roysterers, Ben Jonson 
and his crew! Next, my soul will be im- 
perilled by attending the Globe theatre. 
Avaunt ! Natheless — natheless — I will 
g°-” 

“ I knew thou wouldst ! Catch old birds 
with chaff, my worthy Puritan ; thou art 
no better than the rest ! ” 

He laughed loud as before, and putting 
his arm through mine we go toward the 
tavern. I was more than willing, for I 
loved the thought of seeing sweet Will 
Shakespeare, of whom I had heard much. 
My Captain now breaks forth in praises 
of him as we walk along. 

“ Even you vile Puritan people,” he says, 
“ must love him as much as the gayest gal- 
lant that ruffles feathers. Sure a greater 
English pen never wrote than Will Shake- 
speare’s. We will talk with him a little ; 
then I have somewhat to say to thee, Anas. 
I want good men for a great work ; but 
more anon of that.” 

We come at last to the Mermaid tavern 


9 


My Lady Pokahontas 

and find the place full of swordsmen rattling 
Spurs and drinking sack, and talking loud 
of their exploits in the Flanders wars. My 
Captain pushes through ’em as one who is 
weary of that, and goes to a corner where 
is seated in a sort of shadow a man with 
a bald forehead and a pointed beard, in a 
turned down collar. He is looking at the 
crowd and smiling in a notable way, and 
as I gaze at him I think, “ He is studying 
these people.” This man, I soon found, 
was Master Will Shakespeare ; and not 
far from him sate a burly big man with 
a pocked face drinking sack, who was the 
great play writer, Ben Jonson. 

As we now begin talking with Master 
Shakespeare, Master Jonson chimes in, 
and they two have wit combats ; wherein 
Shakespeare is like a quiet English craft 
darting to and fro around a huge Span- 
ish galleon, firing culverins into her hulk. 
When Smith first comes up Master Shake- 
speare rises and salutes him, smiling. His 
smile is extraordinary sweet, and his way 
of speaking very simple and friendly. They 
talked a long time, but Master Shakespeare 
listened more than he spoke. With his 
eyes fixed on Smith he seemed to be 
studying him too, as he had been studying 


Sweet Will 
Shakespeare 
and Rare 
Ben Jonson. 




10 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Their merry the crowd in the tavern, where that day 

iests ' cam e Ancient Pistol , and one resembling 
Sir John Falstaff, though methinks that 
wonder of wit must have been a pure fancy 
of the brain. 

The talk went on to the afternoon, and 
I well remember all Master Shakespeare 
said. He was ever smiling and sipping 
his sack, and when Master Ben Jonson 
cried “Ho! ho!” and jested in his deep, 
gruff voice at his friend, Master Shake- 
speare turns round sudden and fires a 
shot at him. But for having much to 
record, I should beg the good reader to so 
far bear with me as to let me set down 
the exact words of Master Shakespeare, 
the jests he uttered, and some wondrous 
maxims that came from him. But time is 
wanting, and I needs must pass to that au- 
dience with which I was honoured on this 
same day by his Majesty King James. It 
were ill to spend attention on a mere play- 
writer while his gracious Majesty waits. So 
I pass over what Master Shakespeare told 
us of his life at Stratford, why he came up 
to London, and where he got his plays. 
He spoke of, all to Smith, who was not a 
stranger to him ; and had I space I might 
tell the names of the real people he drew 


II 


My Lady Pokahontas 

from, in tragedy and comedy, from Shy- 
lock , the Jew of Venice, to wheezy Sir 
John Falstaff y who so exceeds all else for 
wit and humour that I have seen the great 
crowds at the Globe, or the House in Black 
Friars, rise up and shout as he waddled 
on the stage. 

To end with Master Shakespeare whose 
fine filed talk I could set down. His dis- 
course with Smith was of a drama which 
he purposed writing on his return to Strat- 
ford, which always inspired him, he said, 
as one to the mannor born.* This drama, 
meant to be writ, he said, would be named 
“The Tempest,” and the stage to be 
the Bermudas, or Isles of Devils , whereof 
Master Henry May, the shipwrecked mar- 
iner, writes in his relation of 1593, then 
late printed.! Somewhat more was needed, 
Master Shakespeare said, than that brief 
relation ; and he prayed Captain Smith, if 
he ever visited this wild country, to come 
to Stratford on Avon when he was back in 
England, and tell him all things at his New 
Place house there. This and more was 

* The spelling of the word “ manor ” in this place by Todkill 
would seem to indicate that Shakespeare wrote “ to the mannor 
born,” and not “to the manner in Hamlet. The word manor is 
so spelled in old deeds of that century and the century succeeding it. 
t In 1600, just preceding this interview with Shakespeare. 


Master 
Shakespeare 
his fine filed 
talk. 


12 


My Lady Pokahontas 

wt take said : how the Captain should be a wel- 

l wondct. tbat come guest there, and how himself, Master 
Shakespeare, spent his time : in what hours 
of the day he writes his plays, and how 
they would come to him ; brief, all about 
himself, and how his life passed there. 
But for having greater matter, — that au- 
dience with his Majesty, — ■ I might here 
trifle the time for my reader (though he 
were loth) with this small, idle gossip touch- 
ing a writer of plays. Sure that were a 
shame, Anas (I say), while his Majesty 
waits ! Think ! thy dread liege, King James, 
to wait on a player ! 

So at last this sweet Will Shakespeare 
takes leave of us with close pressure of 
hands ; goes away to the town of Stratford, 
where he seemeth to think naught of his 
fame ; and now, lately, falls asleep there, 
and lies under the daisies. Almost I doubt 
it had not been better to forget his great 
Majesty and speak of this Shakespeare ; of 
his flashes of quick conceit and weighty 
thoughts winged with laughter. Natheless, 
Smith would go to the King, and we push 
through the Nyms and Pistols out of the 
Mermaid : but he, too, pondereth and saith, 
turning to look back : “ Is he not wonder- 
ful, this sweet Will Shakespeare ? Was 


My Lady Pokahontas ly 

there ever a kindlier smile ? No marvel 
his plays ravish the listeners with a sort of 
delight. ,, 

“ Well, perchance he hath some merit,” 
I say, designing a jest; “he is the best of 
his bad class, I allow.” 

Thereat Smith burst forth in laughter. 

“ There is godly Anas Todkill making 
believe he is a hater of plays and play- 
writers, and loves ’em all the time, though 
he scoff at ’em ! But to other matters, 
Anas. I am going on the Virginia voy- 
age.” 

“ The Virginia voyage ! ” I say. 

“Yea, though it end at the Isle of Dev- 
ils, — the still-vexd Bermoothes y as Master 
Shakespeare called them.” 

“ Avaunt Sathanas ! ” I cry ; “ thou wilt 
lead me to perdition.” 

“ No, to the Virgin land, Anas ! Come, 
I want men like thee. Worthy Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold, the brave sea captain, and 
my friend, hath set on foot a voyage thither 
to found a colony in the wondrous country. 
Fame surely hath told you of him. He it 
was who made the first straight voyage 
across the Atlantic ocean. He landed in 
New England, but would now adventure 
farther south. This voyage fills my mind. 


Smith would 
visit the Vir- 
gin Land. 


14 My Lady Pokahontas 

i have audi - comrade. That country is now untrod, but 
e grlciou$ l% who knows ? great cities and states may 
majesty. some day r i S e there. It may be, the 
world rolls westward, not eastward as some 
will have it. Master Gosnold has got three 
ships — the God Speed, the Susan Consta7it y 
and the Discovery — and a hundred adven- 
turers. Wilt thou go with him and me ? 
If thou wilt, Anas, we shall see fine times ! 
All is ready. Even now I seek his Maj- 
esty, who has granted us his patent. Come 
thou, too, and talk with him ; fear not ! 
’t is only a man, and not so much a man, 
for thy ear, Anas ! ” 

Whoso listened to this soldier was sooner 
or later persuaded by him. I was ready 
for that same persuasion. There was 
nought to hold me in England, and I 
longed to sail the western seas and reach 
the wondrous land, and find the Fount 
of Youth there, wherein I believed, nor am 
sure I disbelieve to-day. So I joyfully 
agreed to go on this famous Virginia voy- 
age ; and went with Captain Smith to 
Whitehall, where we had audience of his 
Majesty about the Virginia business. I, 
Anas Todkill, was ushered in with him, 
and his Majesty speaks to me by name in 
his sweet Scottish accent. But this great 


My Lady Pokabontas 15 

and exceeding honour deserveth more rela- /#/«// ra- 
tion : and now see how ill a thing it had 
been to waste time on Master Shakespeare ! 

There had then been no space to tell of 
this far greater honour, — my audience 
with his Majesty, whereof I give here a 
full repertory of all he said, leaving out 
nothing.* . . . 

* Unfortunately the sheet* of Master Todkill’s relation describ- 
ing his interview with King James I. have been lost. The paging 
indicates that the relation was elaborate. 


/ go on the 

Virginia 

Voyage. 



III. 

I go on the Virginia Voyage, and what fol- 
lowed at Jamestown. 

S O at last the adventurers to Virginia 
were on the ocean ; and passing the 
Azores, sailed westward to the unknown 
land. The spring was come as we neared 
Mevis, Mona, and the Virgin Isles, and the 
sea was ruffled to silver ripples by the 
south wind. Here we rested, and then 
went on, coasting the country of Florida 
(where the Spaniard hath intruded), smell- 
ing the perfume of early flowers wafted far 
out to sea. The colony was to be fixed 
at Roanoke, where that valiant and great 
spirit, Sir Richard Grenville of noble mem- 
ory — he who fought the fifty Spaniards in 
his one ship, the Revenge, off the Azores, 
and died with a quiet mind * — founded 

* This is evidently an allusion to the last words of Sir Richard 
Grenville, whose famous combat with the Spanish ships had taken 
place about fifteen years before : — 

“ Here I, Richard Grenville, die with a joyous and quiet mind, 
for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting 
for his country, queen, religion, and honour, my soul willingly de- 
parting from this body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having 
behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do.” 


My Lady Pokahontas ij 

the first English colony. The poor peo- 
ple wandered off into the woods and were 
nevermore heard of, — a strange decree 
of Almighty Providence, were aught done 
by Him strange, or not a working together 
for good to them that love Him. So they 
went away quietly, — little Virginia Dare, 
the first English child born in America, and 
the rest, — and the cypress forest took 
them, and they were no more heard of. 

Now this old Roanoke colony was to 
be built again on the same foundation. But 
we were never to see Roanoke. A fierce 
storm drave us northward to the mouth of 
a great bay, and taking refuge therein we 
thanked God for his deliverance, and re- 
solved to found the Virginia colony here. 

Before us was a great inland sea, with 
waves as high as the main ocean, over 
which shimmed white-winged sea-fowl, and 
along the shore was a fringe of goodly 
trees. Sailing on, we named a cape of 
land Point Comfort, since we had good 
comfort there after the tossing storm ; and 
then we went up a great river, called the 
Powhatan by the Indians, and landed here 
and there in the Paspahegh country, the 
land of Appomattocks, and elsewhere, look- 
ing for a good spot. This we found on the 


And enter 
tbe sea of 
Chesapeake, 
called of the 
Spaniard 
Santa Maria. 


jamestown. 


1 8 My Lady PokahonTas 

left bank of the river about forty miles 
from its mouth, and here we landed in 
May, calling the place Jamestown in honour 
of his Majesty, and pitched tents, and set 
to work building cabins. 

If the readers of this true relation would 
know of the old times at Jamestown, — how 
we lived under tents and boughs, and 
stretched a canvas between trees to wor- 
ship God under, with a pulpit of a bar of 
wood nailed to two of the trunks ; and 
worked at the huts with dusky Indians 
looking on, and wondering at the reed 
thatching as at us and all we did, — this 
is writ in the old repertories of Master 
Fenton, Master George Percy, and other 
of Smith’s old soldiers. 

This true relation tells the story of my 
Lady Pokahontas ; but natheless comes 
back to memory that fearful summer of our 
blessed Lord, 1607. A hot fever, bred of 
the river ooze and sultry sun, well nigh 
destroyed us. For five months in this 
miserable distress there were not five men 
to man the bulwarks ; in every corner of 
the fort old soldiers groaning day and 
night most pitiful to hear. If there be 
any conscience in men it would make their 
hearts to bleed, could I tell them of the 


19 


My Lady Pokahontas 

pitiful murmuring of our poor sick men, by The terrible 
day and by night; some departing out of^ r ’ 
the world, many times three and four in 
a night ! in the morning the dead bod- 
ies trailed out of the cabins like dogs, to 
be buried in the ooze by the rest of the 
sick, scarce enough to perform that sad 
office.* 

Oh, it was pitiful, and but for our Cap- 
tain, Smith, the end of the colony had then 
come. He it was who, next under God, 
preserved us all from death and confusion. 

When not ten men could go or stand, he 
fed the sick and was the head of all. Of 
that fearful time I can speak no further. 

My breast still labours to think how, ere 
the autumn of that year, we lost one half 
our company. But the cool days came at 
last, and the rivers were full of wild fowls, 
giving meat to our starving handful. 

Hope revived with this blessed season, 
and next, the Council bethink them that 
his Majesty’s command to discover the 
South Sea beyond the Blue Mountains is 
not obeyed yet. 

Now a word of this same Council, — not 
much speaking, since they be not worthy of 

* This account exactly agrees with that of George Percy, brother 
of the Earl of Northumberland, in his Discourse of the Plantation 
of the Southern Colony in Virginia . 


20 


Smith seeketb 
the great 
South Sea. 


My Lady Pokahontas 

it. The head thereof was Master Edward 
Maria Wingfield, a fat merchant, and the 
tail, one Ratcliffe, a counterfeit impostor, 
as will be set forth. This Wingfield had 
been best at home, for his heart failed him 
from the first, and he did nought but 
feast on the stores, and start at shadows, 
thinking Smith would murder him. Smith 
haunts him night and day ; would make 
himself “ King of Virginia,” and is tried 
on that charge, and Wingfield shown to 
have suborned perjury. So the jury ac- 
quits Smith and puts Ratcliffe in Wing- 
field’s stead ; when he would seize the Pin- 
nace and fly to England, whither the two 
other ships had gone, as I will relate. 

Now these Councillors would destroy 
their enemy, the valiant Captain Smith, 
and urged the South Sea discovery in the 
bitter season to that end. But he, full of 
his brave spirit, natheless would undertake 
it ; or at least go and explore the river 
Chickahomania, which hath its head in the 
Blue Mountains, beyond which is the great 
South Sea, though none hath discovered 
it. So toward the time of Christmas, in 
the middle of an extreme frost, Smith sets 
out in his barge, like old Ulysses, with com- 
panions, and sails westward toward the 


21 


My Lady Pokahontas 

baths of the stars, and is no more seen for 
a long season. 

Fain would I, Anas Todkill, have made 
one of his mariners, for my heart cleaved 
to this valiant soldier ; but I could not, 
being sick of a quinsy, and was forced to 
tarry at Jamestown. Soon the white sail 
of the barge was seen coming back down 
the James River ; and the men, all bleeding 
and distraught, bring a report that Smith 
is slain by the savages and two others with 
him. Thereat a great grief smote me, 
and 1 cried : — 

“Farewell thou good soldier! None hath 
seen thy like, and will not in the time to 
come ! ” 

Master Wingfield is standing by, puff- 
ing out with his pursy mouth, as I say 
this, and scowls at me. The new Presi- 
dent, Ratcliffe, hears me too, and looks a f 
me with his bloodshot eyes under bush} 
black brows. 

“ Cease thy muttering ! ” growls this 
Ratcliffe ; “ Smith is a traitor, whose end 
is just.” 

“ He is no traitor ! ” I cry, “ but a true 
man and a worthy. It is they who devour 
the stores and spend the days in riotous 
living, while we starve, who are the trai- 
tors ! ” 


The bruit 
comes be is 
slain. 


/ am ar- 
rested,. 


22 My Lady Pokahontas 

Thereat some standing by frown and 
mutter : — 

“ Anas Todkill says the truth ! ” 

When Ratcliffe falls in a rage and shouts : 
“ Arrest this brawler and mutineer ! ” 

“ Arrest him, I say ! ” here cries Wing- 
field, red with wrath, to his confederate, 
Archer ; and claps me in the Fort, where I 
lay till past New Year in arrest.* 

By that time all was combustion and 
confusion at Jamestown. The unruly crew 
ruled all and ruined all. Then the last 
black act comes. Wingfield, Ratcliffe, and 
Archer seize the Pinnace to escape to Eng- 
land. 

But their evil hour had come. It was 
now past New Year, and the ground was 
white with snow, when sudden the bruit 
runs, “ Smith is coming!” Thereat I, who 
was yet under arrest, pushed by the man 
on guard at the Fort, dared him to stop 
me, caring nought, and rushed out and 
met Smith, who strides into the palisade 
with a wild train of heathen.f 

Short work is made of the confederates, 
who had hastened on board the Pinnace 

* Wingfield had no right to arrest Todkill, having been deposed; 
but his confederate, Archer, chose, it seems, to regard the order as 
sufficient, all the more as Ratcliffe had also given it. 

t These heathen or Indians were the friendly guides and attendants 
supplied to Smith by Powhatan, 


My Lady Pokahontas 23 

and would have fled. But Smith runs to smith « 
the Fort and trains cannon on the ship ; uvIJcai 6 * 
nor stops he to summon them. His friends Uw ' 
crowd around him, and sudden the culver- 
ins roar. With sakre-falcon and musket- 
shot he thunders on those mutineers, and 
they have notice to stay or sink. They 
surrender and come on shore, a black 
looking crew enough ; but many are their 
followers, so that Smith is not master yet. 

He is like to be victim even. The very 
next day he is arraigned for trial under the 
law of Leviticus for the death of the two 
men slain on the Chickahomania ! I who 
write this, long after, stop and shake with 
laughter at that. But it was done : his 
enemies would try him, alleging the Levit- 
ical law that he should be put to death ! * 

But their horns were so much too short 
to finish that business. Smith was not 
the man to trifle the time with such tuf- 
taffty humourists. Sudden the whole party, 
judges and all, are arrested. Then Smith, 
sword in hand, points to the river and 
says : — 

“ To the Pinnace ! Since these gallants 

* This statement of Todkill’s is fully corroborated in the General 
History , where it is said : “ Some no better than they should be 
plotted the next day to have put him to death by the Levitical law,” 
for having “ led to their ends ” the two victims. 


24 


My Lady Pokahontas 


But that ends like it so, they shall live there at my pleas- 
ure, till I send them home to be tried by 
the High Council.” 

Thereat the old soldiers shout and 
clash swords round the chief, 
and the confederates are 
forced on the Pinnace, 
and Smith is 
master. 



IV. 

My Captain tells how an Angel saved Him . 

S O this ill business is over, and all re- 
joice that Smith is back. The gallant 
face is a stay to the feeble, and new life- 
blood seemeth to flow in the veins of the 
poor people. He ordereth all things for 
peace or war ; and, that done, comes to the 
Fort in the sunset, where I am on post. 
When the guard relieves me we walk on 
the shore. 

“ I will tell thee of a great hazard I have 
run, Anas,” Smith says. And then, with a 
wistful look, he acquaints me how he was 
seized by the heathen in the Chickaho- 
mania desert, and tied to a tree to be 
shot with arrows, but he showed them an 
ivory dial. Seeing the needle through the 
glass and yet unable to touch it, they think 
him a god. So they spared him and con- 
ducted him to their great Emperor, the 
mighty King Powhatan, at his royal resi- 
dence on the York River. 

“ Never was such a sight, Anas,” the gal- 


Smith’s peril 
with the 
heathen. 



He is led be- 
fore their 
Emperor. 


26 My Lady Pokahontas 

lant Captain says. “ The Emperor, with no 
beard and a sour look, was sitting in his 
great arbour or wigwam, with his guard of 
one hundred bowmen, who surround him 
day and night. At his head and foot were 
beautiful Indian girls, his favourite wives, 
with other women ranged in long rows 
against the wall, with naked shoulders 
dyed with puccoon, and white bracelets. 
The Emperor himself was clad in a robe of 
raccoon skin, and spoke some words in their 
strange language. Soon I found what was 
meant to be done with me, Anas. They 
brought in a huge stone and dragged me 
to it, and forced me down on it. Then a 
big savage raised his club to beat out my 
brains, when God’s mercy sent to my suc- 
cour one of his angels.” 

Thereat I, who had listened intently, gave 
a great start and exclaimed : — 

“Sent one of his angels ! Natheless ’t is 
not impossible, since we read of such things 
in the Holy Book. Tell me further.” 

“ The angel was a girl of twelve or thir- 
teen, the King’s beloved daughter. I had 
taken note of her in the throng for her 
extreme grace and comeliness, far exceed- 
ing for beauty the rest of her people.* 

* Smith makes a similar statement in his published description 
of Pokahontas. 


27 


My Lady Pokahontas 

She was clad in a doeskin robe lined My Lady 
with down from the breast of the wood- be£% bts 
pigeon, with bracelets of coral, and a white 
plume in her black hair. She was short 
and slight of stature with feet so small as 
scarce carried her ; and I protest to you, 

Anas, I have seen many English maidens 
worse favoured and proportioned than my 
little angel.” * 

“ You do well to call her such. She 
saved you then, this child ? ” I say, won- 
dering. 

“ She ran and clasped my head and held 
me close to her heart that was beating, 
and looks up to her father the Emperor, 
begging he will spare me.” 

" A great wonder, but God is merci- 
ful.” 

“ Certes He it was who sent her. For 
with tears streaming down she holds me 
close to her bosom, and murmurs pitifully 
that I be spared.” 

“ And he listens to her ? ” 

“ He leans on his hand, and muses a 
little space. Then he holds out his big 
red arm, and he with the club falls back, 
sudden. I am saved, Anas ! ” 

Much wondering at this strange relation, 

I say : — 


* See Smith’s letter to the Queen 


28 My Lady Pokahontas 

He sbapeth “ What might be this angel’s name ? ” 
toys for her. « she hath three, whereof Pokahontas 

and Amonate be two. The third, which is 
her real name, none would tell me, lest I 
cast spells on her.” * 

“ The heathen savages that toy with 
fancies ! ” 

“ Toy say you ? Well the great King 
Powhatan would have me stay and fashion 
toys for the maiden. A strange business for 
him that was an old soldier of Duke Sigis- 
mund, but not irksome, Anas ! So I that 
was to be clubbed to death was now safe, 
and feasted royally, and all my business 
was to fashion trinkets with my jack-knife 
for my little beauty ! Do you laugh at me, 
Anas ? She is a beauty, and though she 
made signs to me that she was thirteen 
only, I should have thought her a maid of 
seventeen. These dusky flowers bloom 
early, far earlier than our English lasses. 
And you should have seen Pokahontas 
bending over me with her brown face all 
aglow as I worked, and her slim arms 
with the coral bracelets reaching out from 
a robe of feathers of forest birds to take 
the trinket I fashioned ! Sure never was 
young fawn of the fallow deer more grace- 
ful than this tender virgin ! ” 

* This was a superstition of the Virginia Indians. 


29 


My Lady Pokahontas 


Thereat I laugh, for as he speaks thus / warn my 
Smith’s face glows, and I suspect some- btware . t0 
thing. 

“ A dusky wonder ! ” I say. “ So you love 
her even now ? ” 

“ Love her, say you, Anas ! ” he replies, 
looking at me curiously ; “ sure I love her 
since she saved me.” 

But I, shaking my head : — 

“ That is not the love a man loves a 
woman with ; and this maid is a woman 
sith you call her seventeen in face and 
looks. Beware, worthy Captain ! ” 

Smith laughed and blushed a little, and 
said : — 


“ That were too foolish, Anas ! ” 

“ Remember you are young,” I say. 

“ I am twenty-nine this very month, of * " 
this very year.” 

“ An age to kindle ! ” 

" By my faith thou hast lost thy head, 
Anas ! ” he says. “ What time have I to 
love, or think to marry any woman ? For 
look you, Anas, poor soldier as I am, I 
would live par amours with none of them.” 

“Certes I believe that, knowing you 
as I do,” I say ; “ and to marry this dusk 
princess were a deadly sin, good Cap- 
tain.” 


3 ° 


The angel 
someth. 


My Lady Pokahonias 

“ A sin, Anas ? ” 

He turns his head and looks at me of a 
sudden. 

“ Surely a sin, since the Holy Book for- 
bids marriage with strange wives, and this 
Pokahontas belongs to a cursed genera- 
tion.” 

At this he muses a little, holding his 
chin in his hand, and that elbow in the 
tother * hand. 

“ Well, set thy mind at ease,” he says at 
last ; “ I shall see her no more.” 

“ Who knoweth ? ” 

“ She is but a child and would not ven- 
ture through the irksome woods.” 

Thereat I laugh and say : — 

“ But thou — thou wilt venture to her , 
I think ! ” 

He blushes and looking sideways says 
to me : — 

“ Cease, thou foolish Anas ! nevermore 
shall I see this blessed Pokahontas in any 
coming time.” 

But sudden a bruit sounds from the 
forest near and Smith turns and looks. 

“ She is come ! ” he cries out, his face 

* This pleonasm is common in the old writings to the time of Ba- 
con's rebellion. In urging his famous Middle Plantation oath, he 
asks his auditors how many of them Sir William Berkley is apt to dis* 
patch, for what they have already done, to “ the tother world.” 


My Lady Pokahontas 31 

glowing. “She is yonder, in the woods! 
See her slim figure, Anas, and the white 
plume in her black hair ! ” 

“ And a wild train with baskets of some- 
what to eat,” I laugh, — “ the angel ! ” 


With bas- 
kets. 



How / first see my Lady Pokabontas. 

uun^fawn 'T'HE angel comes out of the woods 
tf the woods. with her wild train of attendants, 

and the full baskets weigh down the backs 
of the dusky people. They were full- 
grown and brawny, with coverings of deer 
and bear skin, but I was looking at the 
osier baskets of corn and venison. 

The maid comes toward us, stepping 
with a pretty and proud gait, like a fawn. 
Her hair was black and straight, but scarce 
seen for the broad white plume in it. 
Now I knew that my Captain had spoken 
truth of her face and form, for scarce 
have I in England seen maid so beautiful. 
She comes putting down each little foot, 
covered with bead moccasins, light but 
firm, and smiling out of black eyes. 

Smith’s tanned face glowed as his eyes 
met hers, and he went forward with out- 
stretched hands. Thereat she blushes 
also, and gives him her hands, looking at 
him and studying his face, but speaking 


33 


My Lady Pokabontas 

no word. Smith bows down his head, kiss- Her secret. 
ing the hand of the small princess, and 
then he leads her into the Fort, and they 
discourse together by signs. It was a mar- 
vel to see how quickly she understood and 
made her own meaning plain. She gazed 
about in wonder, more than all at the can- 
non ; and when Smith, for her better en- 
tertainment, orders a culverin to be dis- 
charged into the trees covered with icicles, 
she starts, putting her hands to her ears, 
and sudden draws close to him as though 
for protection. 

She came in the morning early, and went 
back to her heathen abode on the great 
river a little past noon. To the Emperor’s 
city was but a short fourteen miles, and she 
passed through the wondering crowd and 
went her way. She and Smith parted with 
hands joined together, and looking each in 
other’s eyes. Was my fancy true ? I could 
not tell at that time. Had a Christian man 
fallen in love with a heathen girl ? The 
Lord forbid that ! I said. But I could see 
that the maid had lost her heart to the 
young soldier. 

Now this sudden passion, or else her 
own kind heart, was God’s blessing to us 
poor people, in dire distress for food ; for 
3 


How a ten- 
der virgin 
saved us. 


34 My Lady Pokahontas 

the stores were now all spent, and but for 
the corn and venison brought in the bas- 
kets, many had surely perished of mere 
famine. It was true what Smith writ after- 
wards in his letter to her Majesty the Queen 
that, without this tender virgin and her 
great heart to succour us, this fine land of 
Virginia had lain as at our first arrival till 
this day ; for she, next under God, was still 
the instrument to preserve the colony from 
death, famine, and utter confusion.* Every 
few days thereafter she comes back with 
her osier baskets filled, and the starving 
men blessed this love of dear Pokahontas. 

More of this perilous time I need not 
here set down. Often thinking of it, I 
shudder in my limbs, and thank God for 
Pokahontas. “But for her,” I say again 
and again as I ponder, “ this goodly heri- 
tage of Virginia had sunk back in heathen- 
dom, and God’s immortal cause have had 
herein no exemplar.” 

Happily succour soon arrives. A white 
sail comes up the great river, flying the 
English flag ; and seeing she was not a 
Spaniard, but from the home land, a roar of. 
culverins salutes her, and she comes to an- 
chor. Her commander was Captain New- 

* Smith uses the same words in his letter to the Queen. 


My Lady Pokahontas 


35 


port, an empty, idle man, who was ever 
carrying tales to the Company in London ; 
but we cared not, since they sent us new 
men and supplies for our poor colony. 


Newport 

ship. 


Her gambols 
at James- 
town. 



VI. 

The Strange Antics of Pokabontas. 

I N the years to come, when this fair land 
of America, as the new fashion is to 
call Virginia, shall be full of men and 
women, and great cities rise in the wilds, 
— which doubtless will come to pass in 
the long hours of the future, — these first 
struggles of the Virginia colony for mere 
existence will touch all hearts. I, who 
write this, cannot draw the moving picture 
of that time, since ’t is only to tell of my 
lady Pokahontas that I write this relation. 

She was ever in and out of the James- 
town palisade with her wild train, gambol- 
ling mirthfully on the grass, and looking 
at all things around her with curious eyes. 
What I marvelled at most was the child 
and the woman mixed in her. Sure never 
was such a mingling ; but Smith had said 
truly. It was more a maiden of seventeen 
than a child that I saw in these days ; and 
never in any of her plays and antics was 
there any freedom or immodesty. She was 


My Lady Pokahontas 57 

decently clad in her robe of birds’ feathers, 
and wore a girdle from the waist below the 
knees. On her feet were beaded mocca- 
sins, as these people call their shoes, and 
never saw I the maid’s shoulders, which she 
kept wrapped to the chin in her soft robe. 
Above showed a dusk face with a small 
mouth, and a nose very slight and straight. 
Her eyes were black, and had an extreme 
softness ; her hair of the same colour and 
with never a curl in it, in which drooped 
down a plume of white feathers, her badge 
of princess. 

She soon caught a few words of Eng- 
lish, and then learned wondrous fast. She 
spoke with a curious lisp or murmuring of 
the lips, but not ungainly. She and Smith 
much affected each other, and always the 
same glow was on her face as she looked 
at him ; but in his I could read nothing. 
A mild sweetness and kindness was all writ 
there, however I sought to find more. 

It was not a time for dalliance when men 
were muttering and falling into mutiny, 
and the strong hand was all that kept the 
factions from springingand grappling each 
with other. Newport’s ships were now to 
return, and a craze seized on the company 
that had found in the neighbourhood of 


The gilded 
dirt. 


I go with 
Smith on his 
Chesapeake 
voyages. 


38 My Lady Pokahontas 

Jamestown a yellow dirt they thought to be 
gold. Pokahontas told us ’t was nought, 
but Newport and the rest lost their heads. 
There was no talk or hope but to dig gold, 
wash gold, refine gold, and load gold. 
Smith went about telling them hotly he 
was not enamoured of their dirty skill, and 
murmuring at their neglect of all business 
to fraught the drunken ship with their 
gilded dirt. These words and others he 
said, breathing out his passion ; but New- 
port would not listen, and sailed away 
with a cargo of the fantastical dirt, which, 
once at London, was found worthless (as 
Pokahontas said), and mere dirt indeed. 

This and other old recollections come 
back as I now write, — with the voyages 
on the Chesapeake, where Smith with four- 
teen men in his open barge sailed three 
thousand miles. We stopped to visit on 
the Eastern Shore the laughing King of 
Accomac, who told us of two dead chil- 
dren there, on whose faces whoso looked 
presently fell down and died. Then we 
sailed to the head of the bay, and back 
up Patawamak ; thence to Rappahannock, 
where the savages came to fight us, carry- 
ing boughs of trees to cover them, and I 
was shot with an arrow, and all bloody, and 


39 


My Lady Pokahontas 

nigh having my brains beat out So back we make 
around Point Comfort, where a dread tern- president 
pest struck us, and we could only see the 
shore in the dark night by the lightning 
flashes ; but God preserved us, in his great 
mercy, and we came back to Jamestown, 
where all were starving, and the new Pres- 
ident, Ratcliffe, was feasting on the stores, 
and building himself a palace for pleasure 
in the woods near.* 

This so moved our dead spirits that we 
presently deposed him, and made Smith 
President, who set all to work, stopping the 
pleasure house, and warning Master Rat- 
cliffe at his peril to hold his peace and 
labour with the rest 

Then came Newport back from England, 
and would crown the Emperor Powhatan 
under- King, subject to his Majesty, which 
was done. Never was sight so curious. 

But to speak first of our strange meeting 
again with Pokahontas. 

Captain Newport, a vain, idle man, fear- 
ful of his shadow (he blackened us to the 
people in London, for which we loved him 
little), sent Smith with a party to Werowo* 
comoco to summon the Emperor to James* 

* Todkill was one of the authors of the detailed relations of th«. 
Chesapeake voyages in the General History of Virginia , Neui 
England , and the Summer Isles , 1624. 


4 o 


My Lady Pokahontas 

a Dian of town to be crowned. Arriving at York 
3e Wl 1 s ‘ River, which we crossed in Indian boats, we 
found the Emperor away, and sent word we 
had come, and so waited. We were in a 
broad field nigh some woods, seated by a 
fire, when sudden came a bruit from the 
woods, a hideous noise and shrieking, that 
we ran to arms, looking for an attack. But 
no one designed attacking us. Instead 
came Pokahontas flitting like a fawn out 
of the woods, and running to Smith seized 
his hands and laughed, with her head bent 
sidewise. 

“ They shall not hurt,” she lisped in her 
poor English. “ If they hurt, he shall kill 
Matoaka.” * 

As she said “he,” she touched Smith 
lightly on the breast and then touched her 
own bosom. She was truly a wondrous 
sight. She had small deer antlers on her 
head, and a robe of otter skin around her 
shoulders ; another fell from her waist near 
to her beaded moccasins on her small feet. 
At her back was a quiver of arrows, and 
she had a small cedar bow in her hand. 
Flourishing this around her head, she flit- 
ted back, still laughing, to the woods, and 


* This was the real name of Pokahontas, which her family had not 
divulged to Smith. 


My Lady Pokahontas 41 

soon appeared a party of girls, nigh a score, Her 
singing and dancing, their bodies painted 
with many colours, with girdles of green 
leaves from the waist down, all horned like 
Pokahontas, and flourishing swords and 
potsticks. Never was such a sight ! I 
near died for laughing. The fair fiends 
rushed out with most hellish shouts and 
cries, and danced in ring about the fire, 
their hands joined together, and all laugh- 
ing. Then after an hour spent in this 
masquerade, they danced away and were 
lost to sight, Pokahontas going last, and 
looking over her shoulder. 

Smith claps his hands and says to me : — 

“ Well, what think you of this, Anas ? 
Lift up your testimony against these hea- 
then, my worthy Puritan ! ” 

“The heathen are not ill favoured,” I 
say, “but sing in excellent ill variety.” 

“ A truce to growls, Anas ! ” Smith 
says laughing; “here they come as be- 
fore.” 

With that appeared Pokahontas at the 
head of her maidens, but divested of their 
strange devices, with intent to invite us to 
supper, which was spread in a neighbour- 
ing arbour. Here the Indian girls flocked 
around, handing venison in wooden plat- 


The Emper- 
or’s savage 
state. 


42 My Lady Pokahontas 

ters, crowding and crying most tediously 
“ Love you not me ? ” to Smith and all. 
Whereat Pokahontas was much displeased 
and rated them soundly for their ill man- 
ners ; which I could see from her flushed 
face and royal air as of a princess, though 
I understood not her barbarous language. 
After supper we were conducted to our 
lodgings, — Indian girls carrying torches 
before us, and then going back, — and so 
rested in sound sleep after this laughing 
masquerade.* 

The Emperor comes next day and re- 
ceives Smith, holding out both hands, with 
many pretty discourses, to renew old ac- 
quaintance. He sat on his bed of mats with 
a handsome young woman at his head and 
feet, and around him were his warriors and 
wives, their heads and shoulders painted 
red. I much marvelled at this savage state 
and his kingly words when Smith invited 
him to Jamestown to be crowned. He 
would not go thither. 

“ If your King hath sent me presents,” 
he said by his interpreter, “I also am a 
King and this is my land. Eight days I 
will stay to receive them. Your Father 


1 Todkill is the author also of the description of this scene, in the 
General H istory. 


43 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Newport is to come to me, not I to him, is crowned 
nor yet to your Fort ; neither bite I at Towbauni 
such a bait.” 

To this he held and would not come ; 
so we went back, and Newport returned 
to Powhatan with us, and the savage was 
crowned King. I, Anas Todkill, Puritan, 
and not so much a king lover, laughed 
mightily. Sure never was stranger sight. 

The old heathen accepted the bason and 
bedding sent him and was pleased, I could 
see, to have them. But when Captain 
Newport essayed to put a scarlet cloak 
on him he grunted and resisted. Much 
worse was it when they signed to him to 
bend his knee that he might be crowned. 

He would not. He rose straighter and 
looked scornful, but at last his werowan- 
ces leaned on his shoulders and he was 
forced to kneel and be crowned. As they 
put it on his head a sign was made and a 
volley was fired ; whereat the new king 
started up and would have caught up his 
royal hatchet, thinking it an attack. 

Then I, who had stood by laughing, be- 
gan to laugh more than ever. The old 
Emperor went up to Newport and congrat- 
ulated his kindness, then looking very sol- 
emn he gives Newport his old shoes and 


44 


My Lady Pokahontas 

We go back, raccoon skin robe as a present to King 
James, in return for his crown ! 

Ere we went back to Jamestown I saw 
no further of Pokahontas, and was not to 
see her again till past New Year, when 
she showed me her brave heart 
and made me what I am, and 
will be, until death takes 
me, her faithful 
liegeman. 




VII. 

Of God's Mercy to his Unworthy Servant 
through the Blessed Pokahontas. 

I T comes about in this wise. Now New- we go in 
port, after that vain march to the Mon- 
acan country, goes back to England, tak- 
ing with him Ratcliffe and Wingfield ; and 
the snow was falling, and the colony had 
no corn. We must have that, or the men 
starve, and needs must when the Divell 
drives. 

No persuasion can persuade Smith to 
starve, and he goes down to Nansemunge, 
and says, “ Give me corn ; ” but the heathen 
will not. They have orders (they say) from 
King Powhatan to refuse us ; and seeing 
plainly what this means, Captain Smith 
will go and see the King, with fifty good 
shot. 

Powhatan himself gives reason for com- 
ing. He sends inviting Captain Smith, 
and praying he will send men to build him 
a house, and certain Dutch men go by the 
land way, and Smith by water. So with 


Are warned 
on the way of 
Powhatan’s 
intent. 


46 My Lady Pokabontas 

Master George Percy, brother of his lord- 
ship the Earl of Northumberland, and 
other brave gentlemen and fighters to the 
number of fifty, Smith sails in the Pinnace 
round Point Comfort into the great York 
River, saying to me, as we pass, “ Here is 
a spot for a York Town which may per- 
chance one day be built and grow to be 
famous.” 

But ever as we sail, stopping here and 
there to see the Indian people, comes a 
warning what Powhatan would do. The 
King of Worrosqueake says to our Cap- 
tain : — 

“ Captain Smith, you shall find Pow- 
hatan to use you kindly, but trust him not.” 

“ I will not,” says our Captain in his sol- 
dier way. 

“ And be sure,” says the King, “ he have 
no opportunity to seize your arms, for he 
hath sent for you only to cut your throats.” 

The Captain thanks him for his good 
counsel, but says he will see to that ; and 
so we leave them. Certes, Smith was glad 
to know of the Emperor’s intent. It seemed 
ill going to put his hand on one who in- 
vited him to Werowocomoco (the heathen 
capital). But sith the host would cut the 
throat of the guest, there was no such harm 


47 


My Lady Pokabontas 

in doing the same (perchance) to him, like- 
wise. 

So the Pinnace goes on, a little past 
the time of Christmas, and sails up York 
River, with the barge following, to Wero- 
wocomoco, which in their tongue signifieth 
the “ Chief Place of Council.” 

Powhatan meets Smith in his great wig- 
wam, but not with pretty discourse to re- 
new old acquaintance as before. Why had 
we come ? he says in a muttered voice, 
with cold looks. He had no corn. His 
people had none. But for forty swords he 
would supply three hundred bushels. 

Smith standing in the midst shakes his 
head ; swords were a bad traffic with so sub- 
tle an enemy. So they argue to and fro but 
come to no conclusion, till in the end Pow- 
hatan promises the corn if the Englishmen 
will come ashore for it without their arms , 
which frighted his poor people. Then his 
meaning was plain ; and Smith, seeing the 
Emperor did but trifle the time to cut his 
throat, goes to the door of the wigwam and 
fires off his pistol, which was the signal to 
come on shore and surprise Powhatan. 

Sudden the barge was heard breaking 
the ice on the way from the Pinnace, for 
the river was frozen near half a mile from 


How Smith 
dealt with 
him. 


48 My Lady Pokahontas 

either shore. Thereat Powhatan took fright 
and was quickly gone out of his wigwam ; 
and the savages made an attack, which but 
for Smith had surely ended us. He cut 
out his way, sword in hand, and we follow- 
ing him gained the shore, where we in- 
trenched till morning. 

Now followed a new proof of the love of 
that blessed Pokahontas. The night was 
extreme cold, and we sought a ruined wig- 
wam near, to watch in till daylight. But 
Powhatan meant to destroy us, and would 
have done so but that the Eternal All-see- 
ing God did prevent him. 

Sudden in the dark night, through the 
irksome woods, came his dearest jewel 
and daughter, Pokahontas. She told us 
with streaming tears that her father would 
send us supper, and while we were eat- 
ing fall on and slay us. This she said in 
her broken words, with a trembling voice, 
holding Smith’s hand, as though loth to 
let it go lest some mishap befall him. 

I well remember his face flushed, and 
taking a trinket from his breast he would 
give it her ; but she, putting it by, said 
with tears that her father would kill her if 
he saw her wear it ; and so, covering her 
wet eyes, ran away by herself as she came 


49 


My Lady Pokahontas 

The warning was not too soon. Ere Their plot 
long came lusty fellows with platters of miscarritu 
bread and venison, but making wry faces 
at the smoke of our lighted matchlocks, 
which made them sick (they said). Smith 
smiled thereat, with a wistful look, think- 
ing doubtless of Pokahontas and what she 
told him ; and first making the lusty sav- 
ages eat of the victuals lest they be poi- 
soned, he sent them back to Powhatan 
with the message he need give himself no 
more trouble : his plot was discovered. 

So no more that night wherein Smith 
talked apart with me as I watched. 

“ Is she not a true angel now, Anas ? 

What think you ? ” he says ; “ know you a 
court lady who had thus stolen through 
the dark night to save her friend, — nay the 
enemy of her people ? I who am only a 
poor soldier protest to you on my honour, 
friend, that sith God thus watches over us 
I think this enterprise be fated to turn out 
to his glory and the good of his people.” 

“ Doubtless ’t is so fated, worthy Cap- 
tain,” I reply, “ if they do not slay us on 
the morrow.” 

“ They will not do that,” he says ; “but 
more force would be better. What say 
you to find your way to Jamestown for an- 

4 


jo My Lady Pokahontas 

other score of men ? It is three hours to 
daylight, and you may come back past 
noon.” 

I rose up at the word and was rowed 
over in the barge, and then set out walking 
quickly and reached Jamestown a little past 
daylight. Ill news awaited me. The day 
before, Master Scrivener, the new Coun- 
cillor, had been overturned in a boat and 
drowned with nine others in James River. 

Natheless the men returned with me, 
and we got back to York River a little past 
noon, but no Pinnace there, nor Smith. 
Where had they gone ? With much doubt 
lest they destroy me, I take a canoe I 
find and cross to a clump of bushes, think- 
ing to meet some friendly Indian who 
would tell me ; when sudden a company 
rushes out and seizes me, and carries me 
to Powhatan, who was sitting as before in 
his great wigwam. 

His face was dark, and from the first I 
saw I was to be slain. Smith had got his 
corn and gone away to Pamunkey, and the 
Emperor was raging at what had befell 
him. 

Soon I found that my end was to be the 
same as that meant for Smith ; a stone was 
brought in, but a sign from the Emperor 


My Lady Pokahontas 5/ 

stopped them. Pokahontas was leaning on My Lady 
his knees talking low to him, and he was from death. 
listening. Soon he said some words to his 
people, and I was taken away to a far wig- 
wam, where a guard was put over me. 

The black night now comes, and I give 
myself over for lost, — doubtless they will 
brain me as I sleep. Sudden steals in, 
through the guards, who did not stop her, 
the blessed Pokahontas ; who told me in 
her broken English that I was to be put 
to death the next day ; she had begged her 
father to spare me till then, that I might 
pray to my Gods ; but now she would save 
me. 

Thereat wondering, I obeyed her sign, 
and followed her out of the wigwam. The 
guards were her two brothers, one of them, 
Nantaquaus, the comeliest savage I ever 
beheld, and kind, like his sister. These 
two had plotted my rescue, and went a 
little way with me in the woods, meaning 
to whoop when I was safe away, feigning 
that I had escaped out of the wigwam. 

Pokahontas told me where to find Smith, 

— who had indeed left word for me, — and 
went full two miles with me and Nanta- 
quaus. Then she took my two hands, and 
bending close to me, — 


IVesail back 
to James- 
town. 


52 My Lady Pokahontas 

“ Fare you well,” she says. “ When you 
see him who calls me * Child,’ tell him why 
will he come and make war on my father, 
who loves him much, but must destroy 
him.” 

At this tears came into her eyes, and 
she went off with Nantaquaus in the dark. 
When I had gone some miles further, I 
heard a halloo toward Werowocomoco, and 
knew how Nantaquaus was giving news of 
my escape. I hurried on, and a little past 
midday came to where the York River di- 
videth itself into two gallant branches. 
Travelling on I at last found Smith, at a 
time when he had seized the Chief Ope- 
chancanough by his scalplock in the midst 
of his braves. He ransomed himself with 
corn, and so embarking we sailed down 
again, and found the men who had come 
with me ; and having now sufficient corn, 
returned to Jamestown.* 

Is it so much to wonder at that thence- 
forth I loved the maid who had saved me 
in my dire extremity ? Sure the man 
would be ingrate whose heart melted not 
at such goodness. And so I, who had 
laughed at Smith for calling the blessed 

* Todkill is one of the writers of the relation of these events, also, 
in the General History ; but arrived too late, it seems, to witness one 
of the most remarkable of Smith’s exploits. 


53 


My Lady Pokahontas 

maiden his guardian angel, now bowed My saint. 
down before her, and though no vain and 
foolish Papist, but a good Puritan of Puri- 
tans, made her my Saint Pokahontas. 



Peace at last 
with the 
Heathen. 



VIII. 

How my Captain loveth the Child of a Cursed 
Generation. 

A LL this spring of the year 1609, 
dear Pokahontas, as the old soldiers 
would still call her, comes and goes every 
four or five days to and fro between James- 
town and her father’s habitation on the 
great York River. For the heathen were 
now at peace with us, fearing Smith’s 
strong arm, and the country was as safe 
and free to us as to themselves.* 

Pokahontas, as of old, was in and out 
with us in these days, watching over us, 
and bringing us food. She was still the 
angel of peace ; and when Smith would 
put in irons some Indian thieves who stole 
our turkeys, the King Powhatan sends his 
daughter Pokahontas, who prays Smith to 
spare the thieves ; whereat he, with sweet 
looks, and bowing down before her, says it 
is freely granted, and whatsoever more she 
asks, “ for her sake only.” 

# This is the statement o£ the General History also. 


55 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Now (to put off, for a little time, further My c a p- 
discourse of Pokahontas), this Smith was discourse. 
at last the head of all things. I have seen 
many great and valiant soldiers, but this 
was the greatest. So brave a spirit dwelt 
in him, and so great were the ends he had, 
that no man seeing him could keep from 
loving him and looking to him as their 
true leader. He was everywhere, toiling 
for the good of the colony, and often ex- 
claimed to me (who was his poor friend) 
what a shame it was the London idlers, 
with their cards and dice, would not come 
hither and do men’s work for God’s honour 
in the new land. 

“ Think. Anas ! ” he saith, walking in the 
plain called Smithfield, near the palisade, 
and looking out on the broad river, “ who 
can desire more content, that only hath 
small means, but only his merits to advance 
his fortunes, than to tread and plant the 
ground he hath purchased by his own cour- 
age ; planting and building a foundation 
got from the rude earth by God’s blessing, 
by his own industry, and without preju- 
dice to any ? ” 

Then his brave face kindles up, and he 
seems to look far in the future time. 

“What so truly suits with honour,’* he 


56 My Lady Pokahontas 

My heart exclaims, “ as the discovering things un- 
urne * known, erecting towns, peopling countries, 
informing the ignorant, reforming things 
unjust, and bringing these poor heathen 
people to the knowledge of Christ and 
humanity ! ” * 

I would you had seen his face glow as 
he thus spake in his brave voice. Certes 
there was a look of prophecy in the sol- 
dier’s eyes, as though he saw somewhat in 
the future of this America hid from others ; 
and when he speaks the great words 
“ Christ and humanity ” my heart burneth. 
Sure (I say to myself), this man belongeth 
to the coming time, wherein he looks, 
when others will build on his foundation ! 

For without him this great enterprise 
had surely failed and come to nought. He 
it was that inspired all hearts, and would 
make the sluggards obey and work. Never 
was man milder to his old soldiers, but 
not to the unruly gallants. He summons 
these by beat of drum, and saith to them 
sternly : — 

/ “He that will not work shall not eat ! 
You see now that power resteth wholly 
in myself. Therefore he that offendeth, 


* The same words may be found in Smith’s relation of New Eng* 


57 


My Lady Pokahontas 

let him assuredly expect his due punish- 
ment ! ” 

Thereat many murmur, bending fierce 
looks on our Captain ; but he, growing 
ever sterner, and with a harder voice and 
look : — 

“ Dream no longer of this vain hope 
that Powhatan will supply corn, nor that 
I will longer forbear to force you, or pun- 
ish you if you rail ! If I find any more 
runners off with the Pinnace, let him look 
to arrive at the gallows.” 

He striketh his sword hilt thereupon 
and crieth : — 

“ I protest by that God that made me, 
since necessity hath no power to force you 
to gather for yourselves, you shall not only 
gather for yourselves but for those that 
are sick, — they shall not starve ! ” 

With such mild words Smith persuadeth 
them, though much against their will ; 
and they plant corn for the coming har- 
vest. He even makes them work at other 
work, building a place of retreat against In- 
dian war : the Fort on a ridge above Ware 
Creek, which emptieth itself into York 
River. We go there with tools, and find a 
place on a steep hill hard to approach and 
easy to be defended ; and hew out brown 


How Smith 
dealt with 
the unruly 
gallants. 


Our Place 
Retreat. 


58 My Lady Pokahontas 

of stone rock, and build the Place of Retreat, 
having no mortar. But ere it was finished 
the want of corn stayed it ; and so we re- 
turned to Jamestown.* 

So did our worthy Captain rule the tuf- 
taffty gallants and set ’em to work, with 
that maxim, “ He that will not work, 
neither shall he eat ! ” They were hard 
to rule, but had found one who was their 
master. Natheless, other things moved the 
good Captain in these times of trial ; and 
often I see him go apart, and look out 
on the river, leaning his face on the hilt 
of his broadsword. At such times he 
heaves a sigh, seeming much troubled in 
his mind ; and looks over his shoulder 
toward York River, whither he oft would 
go on this or that business ( with the Em- 
peror). Once, wandering on the river bank, 
I see him leaning thus on his sword when, 
sudden steals up behind him my little 
Lady Pokahontas, who, coming to the Fort 
and not finding him there, goes to seek 
him, and is close to him before he sees 
her. 

Sure never was more gracious image 

* The “ Place of Retreat ” here described by Todkill was, it seems, 
the curious structure called the “ Stone House,” still standing on 
Ware Creek not far from York River. It is probably the oldest build* 
ing in the United States. 


59 


My Lady Pokahontas 

(fie ! Anas, thou a good Puritan ! ) than the 
little maiden of fifteen as she steals up 
softly to his shoulder. It was spring now, 
and in place of her robe of down of the 
wood-pigeon she is clad in a garment woven 
of the nemminaw grass, which is a close, 
bright grass wherewith the men weave their 
stick bucklers. It was wrapped around 
her shoulders modestly to the chin, and 
her round neck came out of it, as she 
looked with laughing eyes over her shoul- 
der, bending her head forward. On her 
slight arm holding the robe at the throat 
was a coral bracelet, and a white feather 
was in her black hair. Even in the woods 
some fifty yards from her I could see her 
gracious face and the fond look on it. Sure 
the swimming eyes fixed on the young sol- 
dier were full of an extreme strange ten- 
derness. She touched him and he turned 
suddenly ; whereat I thought he would kiss 
her, but he did not. His face flushes and 
he stands looking at her, holding her hands 
but not speaking a word. Then they walk 
along the shore, slowly, each beside other ; 
and I hear the low voices mixing with the 
lap of the waves, but catch nothing. 

When they come back to the Fort I see 
a bright light in my little lady’s eyes ; and 


The two to- 
gether. 


60 My Lady Pokahontas 

m goes bach the soldier’s face glows too, as he looks at 
her. I know he loves her now, and she 
loves him, whatever comes of it; since 
something in the faces of us poor crea- 
tures tells our thoughts. ’T was truly a 
wondrous sight to see this hardy soldier 
melt, all of a sudden, as the slim form of 
the girl was there beside him. Her slen- 
der shape was like a reed of the river 
bending in the wind, and her head leaned 
toward him as the sunflower leaneth to the 
sun. There were tears in the fawn eyes 
( I think), but a sudden splendour in the 
soldier’s; and he needs must go a long 
way with her and her train, through the 
woods, toward the York. 

They went away in that same fashion 
in the slant sunlight, still looking each at 
other, and ’t was night when he comes 
back. I meet him by the palisade and say 
with laughter : — 

“ Thou art a prisoner at last, worthy Cap- 
tain ! ” 

At that he muses a little with a flush on 
the tanned cheeks, and then laughs too. 

“ Would to heaven I could see thee , Anas, 
in my state ! ” he says, and leaves me. 

Often now, in the after time, I bethink 
me of those old days at Jamestown, when 


My Lady Pokahontas 61 

these two mortals loved each the other. It / aii, 
was not so strange they should. This great now ‘ 
soldier was comely and gallant, and yet un- 
der thirty years ; and my Lady Pokahontas 
was nigh fifteen and a woman now. The 
Indian girls bloom early, and oft marry in 
girlhood ; but had this difference of age 
been greater, certes love made them equals, 

— him. a youth and her a maid that had 
come to the time to marry. Howe’er 
that be, I know he loved her, this 
half-open bell of the woods ; 
whereof see in this fur- 
ther relation if I 
speak the 
truth. 



Hawk Ar- 
gali. 



IX. 

Hawks and Cormorants (so I call Such). 

S UDDEN the bright days of wander- 
ing with Indian maids on river banks, 
or in the woods, come to an end. 

A bruit reaches Jamestown in these 
spring days, and moves many ; it is brought 
by a trading ship, whereof the commander 
is a certain Captain Argali, or Captain 
Buccaneer. He has come cruising about, 
to traffic with Indians, and fish ; but if a 
merchant ship is seen he is ready to traffic 
with that too ; only he makes such bargain 
as he will, by talking with cannon, before 
looking at the flag the barque runs up. 

What this Captain Argali says to Smith 
now when he comes ashore at Jamestown 
is this : — 

“Thou art no longer President of Vir- 
ginia, worthy Captain. The Company hath 
removed thee.” 

“ Removed me ? Well, for what ? ” says 
Smith shortly. 


My Lady Pokahontas 63 

Argali looks at him keenly from under 
the bushy eyebrows of his hawk face. 

“For hard dealings with the poor Indi- 
ans, and not sending the ships fraughted.” 
Thereat Smith bursts out : — 

“Hard dealings with Indians! — on the 
Y ork River, doubtless ! I that fed the 
starving, when this alone was left, am to 
bear the blame of that ! ” 

“ So it seemeth,” Argali answers. 

“ And for not fraughting the ships ! — I 
that told your man Newport to take cedar, 
not the gilded dirt !” 

Hawk Argali thereat laughs, but looks 
sidewise at Smith’s face, I see. 

“To the fiend with your Company and 
all ! ” cries the soldier, striking his sword 
hilt. “ I like not your look, Master Argali, 
— beware ! Thou art one of these people : 
shall I tell you what they are ? Newport 
is a talebearer that hath a hundred pounds 
a year to go to and fro carrying lies. Wing- 
field is a fat fool, Archer is a mutineer. As 
to Ratcliffe, he is a counterfeit impostor, 
whom I’ve sent home lest my soldiers 
should cut his throat and so end him ! ” * 
The Captain speaks hotly and Master 

* These expressions are so similar to Smith’s in his Rude An- 
swer sent to London as to afford a striking proof of Todkill’s ac- 
curate memory. 


Smith’s an- 
swer to the 
Hawk. 


Their talk 
tnds. 


64 My Lady Pokahontas 

Argali says it is time for him to go back 
to his ship. 

“ Well, this concerns me not, Captain,” 
he says as he goes, u but what I say is true. 
My Lord de la Ware is coming as Governor 
General, with a fleet of ships and half a 
thousand settlers. By now he has sailed 
from England, and your friends — I would 
say these worthies — Newport, Archer, and 
Ratcliffe are with him. Bend no wrathful 
looks on me, worthy Captain ; I have no 
part in it. To tell you a secret, I am bent 
on running a cargo of African negars into 
Virginia ! ” * 

Thereat he laughs low and departs on 
his business, not to come back till after 
times, when he plays a bad game with his 
hawk face and wary eyes in the Virginia 
Colony. 

Now the day soon cometh when this 
great Captain Smith will go away from us ; 
but before I tell of that, hear, in few words, 
what happens to him in this spring, and to 
the men who built Powhatan his chim- 
ney. 

One bright morning Smith goes forth to 
the Glass House, which is in the woods, a 


* The cargo was landed by accident in the Bermudas instead oi 
Virginia. 


My Lady Pokahontas 65 

bow-shot or more from the palisade (we are 
trying glass there), when sudden he is at- 
tacked. A huge Indian leaps on him and 
they clutch and fall in the river, where 
each would drown the other. But Smith 
is too much for him. He throttles him 
and drags him ashore, where he would have 
struck off his head with his falchion ; but 
the Indian begs his mercy. If Smith will 
spare him (he says) he will tell who sent 
him. 

Smith says well, and hears all : it was 
the men at Werowocomoco sent to build 
the Emperor’s house who would make him, 
Smith, a prisoner (for some slight), and 
yield him up to Powhatan. 

While they talk so by signs and some 
words, they are at the palisade, where 
Smith’s old soldiers, hearing all, are in a 
great fury. 

“ I will go cut their throats before the 
face of Powhatan ! ” cries Master George 
Percy ; * and others say they will go with 
him. 

But Smith will not, and the Indian gets 
off, and the throats are safe, but not their 
brains. In the very next year when my 

* The same words are attributed to Percy in the General His- 
tory. 


Smith is at- 
tacked. 


5 


66 


My Lady Pokahontas 

The English Lord la Ware comes as Governor, these 
* eet ' same men offer Powhatan to come to 
Jamestown and make the Lord la Ware his 
friend. Thereat the Emperor grunts and 
ends all in a word. 

“ You that would betray Captain Smith 
to me” he says, “ will surely betray me to 
this great lord.” 

With which words he orders their brains 
to be beat out, which is done ; and so they 
ended. 

Now nought but this is worthy to be 
set down in my relation of the doings at 
Jamestown in the spring days of 1609. 
Hawk Argali sails away, and the place is 
well rid of him ; and so the days pass on, 
and the summer blooms, and the August 
month comes, and with it the English 
fleet whereof Argali spake. 

The English fleet ; but how sorry a 
sight ! As the ships toil up the great river 
and come to anchor before Jamestown, they 
are well-nigh skeleton ships. For, passing 
-the Azores and sailing westward, a fierce 
hurricane had struck them ; and we heard 
how it wracked them, tearing the sails and 
wrenching the timbers. One was lost, 
and the Admiral’s ship, the Sea- Venture , 
is driven toward the Isle of Devils and 


My Lady Pokahontas 6y 

no doubt lost too. A bad business, for on 
the Sea - Venture , with one hundred and 
fifty men and women, sailed the Lieutenant 
Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the Ad- 
miral and the Vice Admiral, Sir George 
Somers and Captain Newport, with the 
Letters Patent ; the Lord la Ware re- 
maining in England. 

So no new government yet for this ill- 
starred Virginia ! But certain people com- 
ing in the ships mean to see to that. The 
worn hulks spit out their load of cormo- 
rants, — and lo ! here is Ratcliffe and all 
the old crew. They have been to London 
whispering to the Company, and blacken- 
ing Smith and his old soldiers. These 
would seize the country, divide it, and 
set up for themselves. Smith is a tyrant 
who oppresses the poor savages, and will 
send home no cargoes ; so the Company 
say the wrong doer shall go. 

Ratcliffe comes on shore and boldly says 
he represents the Governor, and Smith must 
yield to his authority. Then the evil day 
comes, and the Fort is torn with factions. 
To and fro goes Ratcliffe, in and out of 
the Tavern, drinking deep, and telling the 
new men Smith is a tyrant and deposed 
by the Letters in the Sea - Venture. More, 


The Cormo * 
rants. 


68 My Lady Pokahontas 

How they Smith’s time is nigh expired, and he would 
Z7h d tb tr e ifU seize authority anew ; putting whoso an- 
gered him in the stocks or whipping them. 
So Ratcliffe talks everywhere and there- 
with forms a faction ; and the days go 
by hotly (for late summer is come now), 
and Smith knows not what to do, and ex- 
claims : — 

“ The London Company will have none 
of me, and strikes me down, but I will rule 
these sluggards ! ” 

It was not a time for love dreams and 
going to the York River ( to see the Em- 
peror) now ! Had Smith raised so much 
as his finger, the Indians, much more his 
old soldiers, had marched on the rioters ; 
but he would not. More than once came 
Pokahontas, and found him ill at ease, 
knitting his brows and breathing out his 
passions ; but ever the brows would un- 
knit, and the sweet look come back to 
him, and he would talk with her in a low 
voice, looking toward England. 

Soon Ratcliffe and the unruly crew 
thought to openly beard his authority. But 
it was ill trifling with that lion, who but 
kept his claws from them for the peace 
of the Colony. They would take the rule 
whether or no, saying Smith was no longer 


6p 


My Lady Pokahontas 

President ; and he, putting his clutch on Ratciip’s 
Ratcliffe, drags him bodily to the Fort, umt rtbat 
where he claps him in irons. 

Thereat all quiets down, and Smith is 
master of all things. But he is weary and 
sick at heart, with a great anger and dis- 
gust. After all his toils and sufferings 
for the Virginia Colony, the London peo- 
ple disown him. 

“ I will no more of them, Anas ! ” he ex- 
claims to me, striking his sword hilt. “ I 
will put my commission beneath my heel 
and stamp on it ! But first I will go 
home and face the right honour- 
ables with their liar Newport 
and show the truth. If 
they listen not, Eng- 
land at least 
shall hear 
me!” 


The two as 
before. 



X. 

/ go once more with my Captain to the Place 
of Retreat . 

N OW to tell of the last scenes of 
Smith’s stay in Virginia, and his piti- 
ful, brave struggle with the unruly people. 

But first of another matter; for ever 
comes to me the thought, here in my home 
in Kent in old England, “ Thou art writing 
not of Virginia, Anas, so much as of that 
blessed Pokahontas ! and, though thou tell 
of other things and people, it behooves thee 
ever to come back to this angel and dis- 
course of her .” So now a brief relation of 
what happeneth at the Place of Retreat on 
Ware Creek, nigh the York River. 

One day of late summer Pokahontas 
comes to Jamestown, and she and Smith, 
standing on the platform of the Fort near 
the cannon, are long in talk. But ever 
some one comes with this or that he must 
see to, so that now and again he loseth 
patience. When the Lady Pokahontas goes 


My Lady Pokahontas 7/ 

away with her wild train in the woods, 
Smith calls me to him and says : — 

“Wilt thou go on a journey with me, 
Anas ? ” 

“ A journey ? ” I say. 

“ On the morrow. Time presses. Soon 
I will be gone, and yet I have somewhat 
to say to somebody. Wilt thou go with 
me ? ” 

He spake with a wistful, earnest look 
and I say : — 

“To the world’s end. It were little to 
do for one who hath saved my life in the 
Transylvania wars. But whither ? ” 

“ Thou shalt see. Now farewell, Anas ; 
I have work. This cat’s-paw Martin hath 
fled from Nansemunge distraught with fear, 
leaving his company ; and the men at the 
Falls are in combustion. Soon I must go 
thither. To-morrow elsewhere, — and thou 
with me.” 

With which he leaves me, and at day- 
light I feel a hand on my shoulder where I 
sleep in my hut. 

“ Rise, Anas ! ” says a voice, and start- 
ing up I behold my Captain in brave ap- 
parel girt with his sword. 

“ Come,” he says in earnest tones, “ and 
ask nothing.” 


Smith would 
meet some- 
body. 


72 My Lady Pokahontas 

Then I follow him, catching up as I go 
somewhat of bread and meat, for the Tod 
kills have ever been keen for provant. 

Not a word speaks the Captain as we go 
out of the palisade where the first light of 
the sunshine is on the reed thatches of the 
cabins. None is astir save the guard at 
the Fort, who salutes the President ; and 
so we push in the woods, and he leads the 
way toward York River. 

Soon I know whither we go. This is 
the path to the Place of Retreat on the 
ridge above Ware. We follow it through 
the forest, wading at times through little 
streams of water, and hearing the birds 
sing ; when having marched long, we see 
the laurels and the half-built fort on the 
wild ridge. 

The Captain has said little to me on the 
way, seeming lost in sorrowful thought. 
Now he points and says: — 

“ I shall see her here to-day, Anas.” 

Thereat his voice sinks low, and he 
draws a long, deep breath that is piteous 
to listen to. 

“They would still irk me yesterday, 
and there was no opportunity to have full 
speech with her,” he says in the same 
voice. “I am going away, and certain 


73 


My Lady Pokahontas 

things must be spoken. So she will meet 
me here, she says, at this hour to-day. 
See, she is coming ! ” 

His face glowed as he spoke, and he 
pointed to a light skiff with two in it com- 
ing up Ware stream. An Indian youth 
was paddling the skiff, and one I knew for 
Pokahontas was standing at the prow. 

Often now I close my eyes and think of 
that sight and of what followed — two peo- 
ple sitting on a stone by the Ware fort with 
eyes fixed each on other. I heard nought 
that was said and would not, since ’t was 
not my business. Going apart on the wild 
height whereto the approach was only by a 
rugged defile amid laurels and evergreens, 
I talked by signs with him in the boat, who 
was Pokahontas’s brother Nantaquaus ; the 
manliest, comeliest youth I ever saw for a 
savage. I knew not his barbarous lingo, 
but natheless saw he was a young prince. 
From the first he loved Smith and was 
best beloved of the Lady Pokahontas. 

The sun was going away to the woods 
when the talk of Smith and the maid 
ended. He comes to meet us, and clasps 
the hand of Nantaquaus and says : — 

“We will go, Anas.” 

Then he turns his head and looks pite- 


Tbe Some- 
body comes. 


74 


My Lady Pokahontas 


mir pari ■ ously toward Pokahontas, who bends down 

ini there. an( J wee p §# JT re l on g ma id an d her 

brother have passed to their canoe and are 
paddling away ; the last we see of her she 
is bent and seemeth to be weeping still. 

Smith looks at the boat till the woods 
take it and it is no more seen. 

“ Come Anas,” he says in his deep voice, 
which falters a little, “this hath well-nigh 
made a child of me.” 

So we go back to Jamestown, and all the 
way the worthy Captain speaks no word. 



XI. 

We lose him whose Loss was our Deaths. 

W HAT followeth now is the last that 
was seen of Captain Smith in Vir- 
ginia ; and I, who relate it, make the rela- 
tion so brief as I can, finding no heart to 
make it other, or dwell at length on it. 

A great sinking at heart and distaste of 
all things had come over Smith. He was 
weary and irate ; all things galled him. 
For this man, though the mildest and 
sweetest to friends and worthy people, was 
a lion when aught thwarted him. He 
would do what was right, not counting 
cost to himself ; when others would do the 
wrong, and brave him — woe to such ! His 
heavy wrath and heavier hand would certes 
fall on them. 

Now, his wrath and grief were great. 
The Company had disowned him. He was 
cast away like a worthless husk. His com- 
mission was suppressed he knew not why ; 
himself and his old soldiers to be rewarded 


The evil 
day. 


Smith’s dire 
mishap. 


76 My Lady Pokabontas 

he knew not how ; and new authority to 
lie in he knew not whom, — certes it should 
not lie in Ratcliffe! But the end had 
come. He could struggle no more; and 
thereupon he sets all in order, for peace or 
war, to leave the country. 

Little keeps him, and the ships will sail 
soon. All things are going to confusion. 
Martin has fled, distraught with fear, from 
the Company in Nansemunge, and West’s 
people at the Falls are in wild disorder. 
Smith will see to these and then take him- 
self away. So he draws back the company 
from Nansemunge, and then for the Falls. 

He goes thither in his barge with a 
picked company, and I go with him. Never 
saw I man so cool, with so set a purpose 
in his face. The vain people had begun 
their plantation at the Falls on marshy 
ground, and Smith says it shall not be. 
When they resist and fight, he seizes the 
leaders and plants the company on the hill 
of Nonsuch, where Powhatan once had his 
summer capital. 

Then cometh the end. As Smith sails 
down James River again, a bag of powder 
explodes in his barge. His clothes catch 
fire, and he is so tormented by the furious 
flame he leaps in the river, and scarce his 


77 


My Lady Pokahontas 

old soldiers drag him into the boat again 
and take him to Jamestown. 

Then follows what was burned deep into 
my memory and still moves me. Smith 
was lying on his bed tormented by his hurt, 
and the factions roared around him, and 
would seek his death where he lay wounded. 
One traitor comes into his room in the Fort 
and would murder him ; he puts a pistol to 
his breast, but Smith, lying still and quiet, 
looks him steadily in the eye, so that he 
turns away and durst not. I, Anas Tod- 
kill, saw this with my eyes and took charge 
of that traitor, dragging him out by the col- 
lar and hurling him against the Fort gate 
so he reeled, and went away staggering in 
his gait and muttering.* 

As he goes, comes in some one covering 
her face and shaking with sobs, — my little 
Lady Pokahontas. But she cannot see 
him then. He has fainted from his tor- 
ment, and ere night she goes back weep- 
ing with her wild train saying she will re- 
turn on the morrow. As she went out of 
the Fort sobbing, she looked up as though 
to see something that was passing in the 
clouds, and said, in a low voice, “ God ! 

* Ample evidence is to be found in the old relations that Todkill 
does not exaggerate here. Smith’s old soldiers offered, at a sign 
from him, to cut his adversaries’ throats; but he refused to make it. 


A black 
traitor 
would mur- 
der Smith. 


He makes 
ready to 
leave us. 


j8 My Lady Pokahontas 

God ! God ! ” to my amaze ; and then I 
knew how in their talks Smith had per- 
suaded her to be a Christian. 

All that night I watched by him, and at 
dawn comes the shot of a culverin : the 
ships are going back to England, and 
Smith is firm to go with them. His work 
is ended in Virginia, if not forever, for 
this time. The London people will have 
none of him ; he will tell good-bye to his 
old soldiers. Captain Percy, a resolute 
gentleman, is adjudged to act as President, 
and Smith is carried on board on the backs 
of his old soldiers, pale and faint. The 
sailors bustle and make ready the ships ; 
but an hour before the sailing comes the 
blessed Pokahontas for a last greeting. 

She comes into the cabin where I am 
standing by Smith, and her sorrowful face 
lights up the mean place. The month 
was September, and she was wrapped in 
a robe of furs, out of which rose the fair 
flower of her small head, with wan cheeks, 
woe-begone and moist eyes like the heart’s- 
ease. But I saw there was no heart’s- 
ease in the fair bosom of that maid. Her 
face streamed with tears, and going to 
Smith’s couch she knelt down and took his 
thin hand and leaned her wet cheek on it 


79 


My Lady Pokabontas 

Thereat a flush :omes to the soldier's face, 
and I who had looked on at this strange 4 
meeting durst not stay, but went out 
trembling, leaving them alone, each with 
other. 

Near an hour they were talking to- 
gether in low words by themselves. Then 
the culverins roared out giving the signal 
to weigh anchor, and seeing the ship’s 
Captain going to Smith’s cabin I got be- 
fore him, with fixed intent that no cold 
eye should pry into this last greeting. I 
opened the door, and never shall I forget 
what I there saw. My Lady Pokahontas 
was kneeling with her arms around him, 
and his head on her shoulder. Both were 
pale, and as I came in their lips met in a 
long kiss. Then the maid turned away 
from him, hiding her wet face in her fur 
robe, and with a great sob of farewell went 
out of the ship and so to shore. 

Scarce seeing his face for tears, I my- 
self look my leave of him. With a last 
grasp of the hand I parted from that true 
soldier, and, losing him, felt that all 
things well-nigh went with him. What 
shall I say of him we thus lost, save that 
truth and justice were his guides ; that he 
hated sloth and baseness worse than dan- 



80 My Lady Pokahmtas 

ger and death ; that he vould send his 
- men nowhere that he would not lead him- 
self ; that he would never see us want, and 
would rather want himself than borrow, 
or starve than not pay ; that he loved ac- 
tion more than words, and hated falsehood 
more than death ; whose adventures were 
our lives, and whose loss was our deaths. 

I looked after the white sails of the 
ship still they were gone from view toward 
the wide ocean. Then I come back slow 
to the dreary palisade, emptied of all joy 
and satisfaction in my life. When I 
look around to see where is my 
Lady Pokahontas she is not 
there now, but is gone 
away to her York 
woods weeping, 
they say. 




XIL 

How Master Ratcliffe was a Dead Corpse on 
the York River. 

I ANAS TODKILL, who write this true Tbe heathen 
j relation, look back with amaze now on murtbrr *“• 
the days that followed in Virginia. Yonder 
shines the peaceful sunshine on the hop- 
fields of Kent ; my little girl is standing 
a-tiptoe to pull the spring buds and put in 
her curls ; the black sky and thunder of old 
days in far Virginia seem a dream to me. 

Soon with Smith’s going the thunder 
comes and the lightning too. Losing him 
we lose all things ; yea, his greatest ma- 
ligners could now curse the evil fate that 
took him away from us. (God forgive thee, 

Anas ! Didst thou say fate ? Nay, ’t was 
Providence, that ordereth all things, and 
would have us feel the rod for our back- 
slidings.) Sure we feel it now ; for the 
savages no sooner understood our Captain 
was gone, than all revolted and did spoil 
and murther all they encountered. It was 
pitiful; and now see from this what God 
meaneth when he sendeth a true man to 
6 



Sick Master 
Percy . 


82 My Lady Pokahontas 

rule. While this Smith stayed with us, 
the land reposed and the people were fed. 
The savages would not lift hand in that 
time, but said each to other, “ Smith is 
coming ! ” did a stick crackle. But ’t was 
far other now. Nought but blows and 
arrows and hands imbrued in our blood, 
when we go to them for succour. All 
things fall to confusion ; the fierce fac- 
tions fight day and night in the palisade ; 
the people are starving and have no head. 
Good Master Percy, the new President, 
cannot hold the reins. He is sick and 
feeble and would fain go back to England ; 
and the wild horses — so I call the unruly 
gallants led by Ratcliff — run off, dragging 
all things after them, till the crash comes. 

But far worse than all was the Starving 
Time that now cometh, whereof my heart 
shrinks from the relation. To end it ere 
it begin in earnest, Ratcliffe goes to York 
River to get corn from Powhatan. I go 
with him, and what follows is my last sight 
of the Lady Pokahontas for many a day. 
Since Smith went she comes no more to 
Jamestown, and sends nought whereof to 
eat, in osier baskets or other sort. The 
old soldiers marvel thereat, and say, Where 
is the blessed Pokahontas ? Why comes 


My Lady Pokahontas 83 

she not ? But she will not come ; to see 
her once more, I must go to her. 

Now this Ratcliffe takes thirty good shot, 
and would pass over me as one not well 
affected to him ; but I offer, and he says, 
content, though he scowls at me under his 
bushy brows. He knoweth well I loved 
Smith, his enemy, and had certes gone 
away with him, but for staying behind to 
nurse my young cousin, Henry Spilman, 
nigh slain in the fight at Nonsuch. So 
Ratcliffe says I may go if I will, and turns 
his back on me, muttering : — 

“We want no whining Puritans and 
psalm - singing rogues for this business ! 
Powhatan’s time is come, and the end of 
him at hand.” 

“ Are you sure of that, good Master Rat- 
cliffe ? ” I say ; whereat he wheels sudden. 

“What mean you?” he shouts. “If your 
Captain Smith could wrest all from him, 
where were the trouble to do it once more ?” 

Thereat a wicked smile (I fear) rises to 
my face, and I would have said, “ Thou art 
other than Smith,” but say it not, lest he 
tell me I shall not go, and so I see not my 
lady again. I am quiet ; and so at dawn of 
day we set out with the thirty shot, march- 
ing through the woods to York River. 


Ratcliffe’s 

folly. 


84 My Lady Pokahontas 

What followeth will not fill much time in 
this my relation. Certes, God had doomed 
this Ratcliffe, and even the heathens of 
Greece and Rome said their vain gods 
first made mad them they would destroy. 
We come to York River, and Ratcliffe 
sends one of his men across to the King 
to ask audience, in a canoe we find there. 
In an hour comes back the man and saith 
Powhatan would gladly do so ; he loveth 
the English and would succour them, but 
their arms fright his poor people . 

“ A snare ! ” I cry sudden ; “ he would 
destroy thee, Master Ratcliffe ! ” 

But he scowls at me and says : — 

“ Peace ! I would have no talk from 
brawlers ! ” 

“ Natheless ! ” — 

“ Peace ! what would you ? I will arrest 
thee for a brawling knave ! ” 

Whereat I say no more, but listen, and 
Ratcliffe talks with his people. They say, 
not go ; but he differeth from that. Why 
not ? Since the guns fright the poor peo- 
ple he will leave them and cross as friends. 
When he says that, I, Anas Todkill, who 
would not seem faint-hearted, whip my 
hunting knife in my breast, and hide it 
there for fear I want it ; and then we see 


My Lady Pokahontas 85 

canoes crossing:. The King* hath sent Cap- Ratcliff * « 

• , . , - slain, and 

tain Ratcliffe wherewith to come over and nigbaiiwitb 
talk with him. itm ' 

That talk was short. Ratcliffe says he 
will go, and every man lays down his arms, 
and goes in the canoe, and reaches the 
further shore. That was the end. 

Sudden the woods swarm with heathen, 
and they shout and rush on us, slaying 
all that they encounter. Sure never was 
bloodier work, and the poor people fell 
down dead, pierced with Indian arrows or 
beat to death with clubs, holding up hands 
over their heads and crying for mercy, 
which comes not, sith God has doomed this 
Ratcliffe to death, and nigh all them that 
came with him. 

Now to speak of one Anas Todkill, who 
had a knife by good luck, and cut three 
heathens with it so that they died ; for I 
drave it in them and they fell down with 
blood gushing, and hands tearing up grass. 

But what was two or three to kill when 
many hundreds, nay thousands, more were 
there ? I say : — 

“ Thou art dead and gone, Anas ! but re- 
member thou art a Christian and these are 
heathens. Sith thou canst not convert 
them thou must murther them, lest they 
murther thee.” 


My lady of 
mercy. 


86 My Lady Pokahontas 

With that I drive at them, hooking my 
left arm in young Henry Spilman’s, and 
fight through to the woods, and leap a 
stream to the further bank, where the 
bushes are close, and fall in the tangle- 
wood. Sudden a voice cries my name, and 
starting up I see my Lady Pokahontas. 

She clasps me close and pulls me deep 
in the thicket, panting and weeping. Her 
doeskin robe is all torn by briers, so that 
her lissom body is near bare, but she heeds 
it not, nor the boughs catching her black 
hair, which falleth down to her waist. In 
her broken English words she crieth there 
is no time to stay. I must run to the 
river and swim for my life ; they will soon 
be on me. 

“ Then I am dead, Master Todkill,” 
says young Henry, “ for I have never yet 
swum.” 

“I will not leave thee ! ” I cry ; “ since 
we have fought together, needs must we 
die in company.” 

But the blessed Pokahontas says quick 
she will save him, and drags him away. 
But as she doeth so she comes close to me, 
very pale, and says in a whisper : — 

“ He is gone, then ? ” 

I know what she meaneth, and say yes. 


My Lady Pokahontas 8y 

Then she turns her head and looks over / escape to 
her shoulder toward England, with wide Jame%town ' 
eyes and tears streaming. 

“ He will come back some day,” she 
saith low in her Indian tongue. “ I know 
not when, but some day. All is weary, 

I would go from hence. But do thou go ! ” 

A yell hurries me. The blessed damozel 
runs off with poor distraught Henry and 
is hid by the thicket, and I get to York 
River, and am far from shore swimming 
lustily ere they see me. Then a race for 
my life, for canoes come after me with 
long paddle strokes, and the red heathen 
stand up yelling, — but they catch me not. 

Ere their arrows strike me I gain the south 
shore and plunge in the woods, where I 
never stop running till I come again to 
Jamestown. 

So ended Captain Ratcliffe and his thirty 
shot, all but two. That old disturber and 
mutineer is a dead corpse on the York 
River, and Master Hamor writ truly his 
epitaph, that he was “ scarce worthy of re- 
membrance but to his dishonour.” * 

* This account by Todkill of Ratcliffe’s death agrees with that in 
other old relations, where it is stated that only two escaped. “ Poka- 
hontas, the King’s daughter,” says another narrative, “ saved a boy 
called Henry Spilman that lived many yeeres after, by her meanes, 
amongst the Patawomekes.” Todkill’s is the only full account of the 
expedition. 


XIII. 


We go through the Wilderness to the Land 
of Canaan . 

The starv- "XT OW see what that meaneth ; we all 
mg Time. 1 >| f ounc j the want of Captain Smith, yea 
his greatest maligners could now curse 
his loss. This poor dead Ratcliffe ever 
irked him, saying he was the true leader, 
not Smith ; and yet behold how Provi- 
dence fashioneth things. These two men 
tried the same business of getting corn 
from Powhatan ; and one was fooled and 
got none, only his death, when the other 
(Smith) got the corn and his life too. 

But it were idle to speak more hereof. 
The woful Starving Time is coming now. 
Who can tell of it without sighs and tears, 
and the conclusion making God’s mercy 
manifest ! Now there was no more corn, 
and men died of mere famine, looking with 
dumb amaze each in other’s eyes. When 
we went to the Paspaheghs praying suc- 
cour, we had nothing for our pains but mor- 
tal wounds with clubs and arrows. At last 



My Lady Pokahontas 89 

all was eaten, hogs, sheep, and horses, and How a man 
what lived, — nought was spared. Acorns, wife and we 
walnuts, and berries, and a few fish, was burned btm ' 
now all ; we did eat the skins of horses, 
and at last one another. We slew a savage 
and buried him, but the poorer sort did dig 
him up and eat him; and so did divers 
one another boiled and stewed with roots 
and herbs. Yea, one did kill his wife , and 
had eat part of her, ere we knew it, for 
which we burned him, as he well deserved, 
heaping fagots around that wretch tied to 
a stake in the street at Jamestown, and see- 
ing him burn, with loud yells, till he died 
for his foul murther of his innocent wife. 

This was that time which still to this 
day we call the Starving Time. Oh, the 
horror of it ! Even now it comes back to 
me in a sudden quaking. Of five hundred 
men, women, and children scarce sixty were 
now alive, and they poor miserable crea- 
tures that prayed for death to end their 
sufferings. *T was the bright May month, 
but the sunshine brought us no joy. Not 
one hour passed but some dead body was 
trailed out to be buried by them that nigh 
fell in the grave with the dead, for feeble- 
ness. By the palisade all were huddled 
together ; men, women, and children, white 


Goodness of 
Godin send- 
ing; the Ad- 
miral to de- 
liver us. 


go My Lady Pokabontas 

and ghostlike, with yearning eyes looking 
to England. The strong men (once) would 
gnaw wood and the grass blades ; and it 
was pitiful to see the mothers hugging 
babes close to dry bosoms, praying God to 
send them milk. 

Sudden, one day, I hear a cry and run 
out of the Fort (staggering a little, I think). 

“ A sail ! a sail ! ” the babbling voices 
say ; and the crowd totters to the shore. 

“ Blessed be God for all his mercy to his 
creatures ! ” I say, lifting up my eyes ; for 
there was a sail coming up the river ; nay, 
two, white against the fringe of woods. 

The foremost was the cedar ship, built 
by brave Admiral Somers in the Bermuda 
Islands, whereon the Sea- Venture had been 
shipwrecked the year before. This was the 
Deliverance (for which deliverance God be 
thanked !) ; and the other was the Patiencey 
built with bolts from the wrecked Sea- Ven- 
ture. 

So the white sails slowly come, and in 
the midst of a babbling crowd lands the Ad- 
miral Sir George Somers, and Sir Thomas 
Gates, the Lieutenant Governor, and looks 
around them. Oh, the dreary sight ! The 
Jamestown place was a wreck. The cabins 
were nigh gone for firewood, and the palh 


91 


My Lady Pokahontas 

sade half torn down. The gates swung on wt sail for 
broken hinges, and the Fort platform scarce England ' 
held up the cannon. 

Admiral Somers, landing first, puts his 
chin in his hand and looks on with tears. 

The poor people crowd round him cry- 
ing, “ Bread ! bread ! ” whereat a great sob 
shakes him, and he gives orders to his 
sailors, who haste to the ship to bring it. 

Soon the crowd is fed, and then they jostle 
and babble and cry with one voice, “ Eng- 
land ! England ! ” most of all the mothers, 
and the Admiral says they shall go. In 
his ships he has but fourteen days’ provis- 
ions, but he will try. No, he will not de- 
sert us ; as God sees him he will succour 
us. All shall embark quick, and a day is 
fixed and all is ready. 

The sight was piteous, to see these 
wretches crowd on the ships, half crazed 
with joy, and nigh out of their heads. 

They would have burned the cursed place 
that they could nevermore return to it ; 
but God, who would not have this fine 
country unplanted by Englishmen, put it 
into the heart of the Admiral Somers to 
forbid that. Having buried the cannon at 
the gate of the Fort, he posts a guard on 
the palisade and hurries the poor people 


Q2 My Lady Pokahontas 

The coming aboard. The drum rolls for the signal and 
%/££ la all are shipped, and the Admiral follows. 

A salute is fired then as the ships move, 
— farewell to Jamestown ! 

But said I not that God would not have 
this land of Virginia fall back in heathen- 
esse ? Blessed be his name for all his 
goodness ; for when the ships stopped a 
night at Mulberry Isle, here comes at dawn 
a swift barge shooting up the river, flying 
the English pennon. Thereat a great 
shout rises and cries of amaze, — what is 
coming? It is my Lord la Ware, with 
more ships and Englishmen. He hath 
stopped a little below, but hearing James- 
town is abandoned sendeth his orders to 
go back there and await him ; so we go 
back joyfully. 

Next day comes this brave Lord la 
Ware in his ships, with flags flying, and 
lands on shore, and kneels down, with shut 
eyes, and prays for a season ; glad at heart 
he comes in time to save Virginia. Then 
the drums roll loud once more, and the 
church is open for service, and all is joy 
in the Virginia plantation, which was dead 
and is alive again. 

Writing here in the after days, I, Anas 
Todkill, shut my eyes as my Lord la Ware 


93 


My Lady Pokahontas 

shut his, and see all that once more. Sure 
’t was God’s infinite providence ; and needs 
must his poor people cast themselves at 
his very footstool and adore his goodness* 
For had he not sent Sir George Somers 
from the Bermudas, within four days we 
had famished ; and if we had set sail sooner 
and launched on the vast ocean, how en- 
counter the fleet of the Lord la Ware ? 
This was the arm of the Lord of Hosts, 
who would have his people pass the Red 
Sea and wilderness, and then to pos- 
sess the land of Canaa?i . So I 
say with the heathen Socra- 
tes, “ If God for man be 
careful, why should 
man be over 
distrust- 
ful?” 


The arm of 
the Lord of 
Hosts. 


The Lord la 
Ware. 



XIV. 

How Some One did break a Poor Man on 
the Wheel. 

A S I go back in memory, and all these 
old times come to me, ever I think, 
“ Thou didst set out, Anas, to discourse of 
the Lady Pokahontas only. Who art thou 
to write histories, whereof thy betters can 
scarce make aught but lying repertories 
nothing worth ? ” 

So, soon, we will come back to that 
blessed damozel. But some strange things 
happed before, whereof I needs must write 
this brief relation, though some discredit 
that bloody marvel of which I was told. 
Was it the High Marshal Dale that did 
it, or some other ? Whoever he be, he 
must answer before the judgment. 

Now, not to tarry long or discourse oi 
my Lord la Ware in Virginia. He was 
a brave and great lord, soft of heart, and 
did much for us. He stays from spring 
to spring only, and builds forts and feeds 
his people ; but for more supplies sends 


95 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Sir George Somers, the old Admiral, in 
his cedar ship to the Bermudas, where is 
much fruit and other, with wild hogs left 
there by the Spaniard. So the Admiral 
sails forth to the Isle of Devils, not to re- 
turn. When he comes there and loads his 
ship with pomegranates and such tropic 
stuff, he falls sick, when he entreats his 
men, like a valiant Captain, to be constant 
to their duty and go back to Virginia. 
Then he dies, but they, as men amazed, 
seeing the death of him who was the life 
of them all, embalmed his body and sailed 
for England. Sure that was a traitorous 
act, but they returned not to Virginia. 
The cedar ship, with his dead body, arrived 
at White Church, in Dorset, where by his 
friends he was buried, with volleys of shot 
and the rites of a soldier. So he ended, 
this brave Admiral, that saved us at James- 
town. 

Now not much more of his great lord- 
ship, my Lord la Ware, who kept royal 
state. He would still go to church with 
his Lieutenant Governor and High Ad- 
miral and Master of the Horse and all his 
brave company, followed by fifty halberd- 
bearers in scarlet cloaks. There he sits 
himself in a velvet chair, with a silk cush- 


His brave at 
tendants. 


Their vain 
talk of the 
Flowers. 


96 My Lady Pokahontas 

ion to kneel on, after the vain Church of 
England fashion ; and the church is fitted 
with cedar pews and a walnut table and 
font, and hath two bells at the west end ; 
the whole some sixty feet long. I, Anas 
Todkill, would go oft, though my Puritan 
heart liked not all this mummery, least 
of all the flowers wherewith my Lord la 
Ware would still deck his church. These 
papists’ abominations made my heart to 
burn ; and oft looking at the walls, chancel, 
and pulpit nigh covered with red and white 
roses, I say to myself : — 

“ Away ! thou relics of a vain worship ! 
thou temptations of the Evil One ! ” 

And what irketh me most of all is that 
these Church of England Virginians, or as 
the new term hath it Episcopalians, have 
nought to say against them. Even they 
love these snares of Satan, and one says, 
laughing, to me when I grumble : — 

“ Why not dress the church with flow- 
ers, Master Todkill ? Sure ’t is innocent, 
sith God made them ; and if the Good 
Book saith i all shall worship Him,’ why 
not the flowers ? ” 

With which vain talk they would think 
to persuade Anas Todkill, a good Puritan, 
but cannot l 


97 


My Lady Pokahontas 
/ 

When my Lord la Ware falls sick and 
goes to England in early summer, comes 
the High Marshal, Sir Thomas Dale, a 
stalwart ruler. Soon his heavy hand falls 
on the unruly gallants, who will not work, 
and play bowls in the grass-grown streets 
of Jamestown.* 

He is the master of the gallants quick : 
they shall work, and not be fed like drones 
by the working bees. He is right in that, 
but soon the valiant High Marshal shows 
his claws in far other matters. He would 
have his way in all, and the old soldiers 
like not that. Brief, he brings from Eng- 
land his “ Code Martial and Moral,” writ 
by Master Strachey, whereby he can do 
aught he will ; and when this pleases few, 
and a company say this martial law is a 
thing unlawful, whereof I, Anas Todkill, 
was one, comes a fierce and bloody busi- 
ness. Jeffrey Abbot and other of Smith’s 
old soldiers are arrested, and the Marshal 
shoots most all, and tortures many.f Some 

* The writer fails to mention that Sir Thomas Gates, the Lieu- 
tenant Governor, had been sent to England, and that Percy, who was 
left in charge of the colony, could not rule the “gallants.” In 
writing many years afterwards these details may have escaped his 
memory. 

t It is necessary in reading this account to remember that Todkill 
by his own confession was one of the conspirators, and that his state- 
ments are to be taken cautiously. The conspiracy probably aimed 


The valiant 

Marshal 

Dale. 


His cruel 
and barba- 
rous act. 


98 My Lady Pokahontas 

have awls thrust through their tongues, 
others are tied by the thumbs and hoisted 
from the floor, and one was broke on the 
wheel. 

I who write saw not this, for it took 
place inside the Fort, whereof a guard at 
the door stopped all who would enter. 
But Jeffrey Abbot told me that Barebones 
Prym told him that Praise-the-Lord Wil- 
kins told him that he heard ’t was done to ‘ 
one whose name was hid. This was the 
foul and unnatural way of it. The man 
was stretched on a frame, and four horses 
chained to his arms and legs, and men 
with whips ready. Would he confess and 
tell his accomplices ? If he would, then 
his life should be spared ; but he had 
nought to do with the business, he cried. 

At that, one standing by crieth : — 

- Whip ! he shall tell ! ” 

Whereon the horses are whipped up and 
his legs and arms are pulled and the bones 
crack. The man faints, but comes to, 
and is asked again if he will confess. He 
moans he cannot, having nought to tell. 
Then the voice cries once more : — 

“ Whip ! the wretch shall own all ! ” 

at much more serious ends than a simple protest against the enforce- 
ment of martial law. The deposition or death of Dale seems to have 
been contemplated by the leaders, though probably not by Todkill. 


99 


My Lady Pokabontas 

The horses' start and drag him nigh 
asunder, and his leg-bones start out, with 
gushes of blood. The poor wretch crieth 
shrill, “ Kill me ! ” but the blood in his 
throat stops him. Then the man standing 
by — I wot not who he was, I think not the 
Marshal — says to one : — 

“ Sith he would die, let it be so, as the 
law directs.” 

And this one who is spoke to lifts a club 
wherewith he is furnished, and breaks the 
bones of the poor wretch on the frame ; 
and, last, dashes his brains out and so ends 
him. 

For this I vouch not, having not seen 
it ; and scarce I think the valiant Marshal, 
who was stern but not pitiless, ever or- 
dered it ; natheless ’t is here related. Jef- 
frey Abbot, Smith’s old sergeant, a true 
man too, told me he heard it. Barebones 
Prym told him that Praise-the-Lord Wil- 
kins told him that ’t was done, or another 
told him he heard ’t was done. If so be, 
the Lord doubtless will requite them that 
did it ; for the right lieth in none to put 
men to death by so barbarous, unusual, and 
cruel punishment.* Natheless, for a last 

* There is no doubt that men were broken on the wheel at this 
period in Virginia. One account speaks of the “ cruel, painful, and 
unusual ” punishments inflicted ; another states that the manner 


Who told ml 
thereof. 


700 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Argaii word, I cannot, believe the Marshal or- 
d Frencb h peo - dered it ; it may be ’t was done by Argali, 
p MountDe- hawk-buccaneer who brought the ill 

sert news to Smith, and was now back in Vir- 
ginia seeking something to pounce on. But 
I know not. 

Now this same Argali is sent on a buc- 
caneer business to kill innocent people be- 
fore he seizes my Lady Pokahontas, as my 
relation will show. News comes to James- 
town that the French are settling on Vir- 
ginia ground in Nova Scotia, at Mount 
Desert Island, and Dale sends Argali to 
rout ’em out. Which he does without word, 
shooting men and women down there at 
this Mount Desert, whereof I know not ; 
and thence sails to the Hudson River and 
drags down the Dutch flag at Albany Fort 
and Manhattan Island in Virginia. So he 
comes back in triumph, this hawk and buc- 
caneer, and next seizes my Lady Pokahon- 
tas and brings her to Jamestown. 

was one customary “in France;” and certain Virginia Burgesses 
of 1624 deposed that to their personal knowledge men had been put 
to death “ by hanging, shooting, breaking on the wheel , and the 
liked'' 



XV. 

How my Lady Pokahonlas is brought to 
Jamestown a Prisoner. 

T HE treacherous betrayal, to call it 
by its right name, of my Lady Poka- 
hontas, takes place in this wise. But first 
of the strangeness of my lady never visit- 
ing us again after Smith goes. 

How she went away after that last leave- 
taking this true relation hath shown ; and 
how I, Anas Todkill, saw her but once 
only thereafter, when again she saved my 
poor life. But never she comes to James- 
town any more now, and seemeth as one 
dead to us. In old days (as hath been 
told) she was ever in and out with her 
wild train (and baskets), but now no Poka- 
hontas and no wild train ; worse than all, 
no baskets ! She cometh not, and, as we 
hear, is not now at Werowocomoco. Some 
say she and the Emperor have quarrelled ; 
others that she hath made a princely prog- 
ress for her divertisement to the country 


My Lady 
comes no 
more. 



102 


My Lady Pokahontas 

1 5 betrayed of Potowamak. Only, I find after this, from 
hjapa^aws. gome b ro ken words she herself speaketh, 
that she cannot bear the scenes where she 
and Smith were together, and goes away 
to dull her grief.* 

What is most to us, she comes no more ; 
and after a while the English think her to 
be dead ; but sudden we hear of her and 
see her too, which happened as followeth. 

This same Captain Argali, the hawk, 
going to the river Potowamak for corn, 
whereof he would fain bring back a ship 
full, is told by Japazaws, an Indian chief 
there, that the Lady Pokahontas is with 
him. Thereat Argali, much marvelling, 
and most to hear she is in hiding, as they 
said, bargains with Japazaws to buy her 
for a copper kettle, to which he agrees. 
Now see the treacherous falsehood of these 
savage people, who would betray their very 
guests even for what they covet, valuing 
like girls the giddy pleasure of the eyes 
beyond faith and honour. Japazaws his wife 
is foremost in this bad business, and wileth 
Pokahontas on board the ship, where there 

* This passage clears up an obscure question. Raphe Hamor 
says, that “ the Nonparella of Virginia,” as he calls Pokahontas, 
made “ a princely progress,” to see her people on the Potomac; and 
another writer describes her as residing there and “ thinking herself 
unknown.” 


My Lady Pokabontas 


103 


will be a fine banquet, she saith. So Poka- And brought 
hontas goes, and is betrayed to Argali ; jamllutwn. 0 
and for all her weeping and entreaties is 
carried back a prisoner to Jamestown ; 
there to be held as a hostage for the good 
behaviour of her father the Emperor. 

Never saw I so sad a face as when she 
landed from the ship and stepped into the 
Fort. She was ever looking around her 
at this and that she remembered, weeping 
the while ; and, most, I could see her eyes 
bent on the casements of that room where- 
in Smith lay when he was ill. Her face 
streamed with tears, and great sobs shook 
her body ; and I, gazing at her, was in 
amaze at her gracious beauty. She was 
now some eighteen years, and a full wo- 
man, though slight of stature. The maid 
had grown a princess, with great dark eyes, 
soft and clear, and a frame slim but round, 
and swaying as she walked on her small 
feet. She was wrapped in a feathered 
robe, and passed proudly through the 
throng scarce looking at any one. Sudden 
she catches sight of me and stops, and 
coming to me, takes my two hands, and 
bursts into weeping as her heart would 
break. Then she goes in the Fort ; the 
gate is shut : and my little Lady is to be 


Smith is 
dead, they 
say. 


104 My Lady Pokahontas 

held a prisoner till Powhatan send back 
some men and muskets taken from the 
Colony. 

It would be long to relate how I came to 
be my lady’s henchman, going her errands 
and waiting on her, as a father waits on 
his child for loving her ; so it happed. She 
had her room in the Fort, and an English 
maid, but ever when she would talk with 
any one she sent for Anas. Never was 
talk so sorrowful as mine with my Lady 
Pokahontas in these days. The bruit had 
come that Smith was dead, and when she 
hears it, a great sob shakes her, and she 
bends down moaning most like a poor bird 
that is shot and bleeding. How and where 
had he died ? but we know nothing. In a 
sea-fight off the Azores, some said, and 
some another story. But none denied he 
was gone, and his old soldiers wept for 
him ; I more than all, remembering that 
true - hearted soldier who had been so 
dearly beloved of me. So we cried to- 
gether like children, — poor Anas Todkill 
and the little princess. She talked long of 
the young soldier, and had a legion of old 
stories of him. But ever she fell again to 
weeping, and saying in a low voice as be- 
fore, when she took leave of him, “ God ! 


My Lady Pokahontas 105 

God ! ” whereby I knew she was still a 
Christian and faithful to her vows. 

The time passed, and at length this first 
outburst of a heavy heart gave way to 
quiet. She wept no more, as the days 
went on, but would move about softly, 
thinking and sometimes talking lowly to 
herself. When she passed me at such 
times, she would raise her head and smile 
pitifully, and lay her little hand on my 
doublet and say, “ Good Anas ! ” which 
pleased me much. They let her go out of 
the Fort whither she would, so she went 
not away ; and one day I followed her and 
saw her stand on the shore, at nigh sun- 
set, where Smith had been standing when 
she stole up behind him. When she came 
back to the Fort she was weeping. 

But time is a hard enemy, and the grave 
an ill remembrancer. Oh, lamentable ! we 
pass away, and those we best loved turn 
otherwhere. Is it God’s great mercy that 
sends this oblivion to his poor creatures ? 
Certes it must be so, since all human 
things flow from Him. So my lady grows 
quiet and her sorrow settles down in her 
heart, I think. She even laughs a little at 
times, and being a girl, which is a thought- 
less creature, takes part in the games of 


My Lady 
weeps sore 
for the old 
love. 


The new 
love comes. 


106 My Lady Pokahontas 

the young men and maids, whereof there 
are plenty now. The youths (and the 
older men for that) would much affect her 
company, for she had a fine mirth and an 
extraordinary sweet smile, with a love of 
what was humourous that made her won- 
drous pleasant. 

So my little lady laughed, and, as the 
wont of her vain sex is, looked at the gal- 
lants with side glances out of the corners 
of her black eyes. But ever under this 
fooling was plain to me the old, settled 
sorrow, and the mourning deep down in 
her heart for the soldier she had loved, 
and who had loved her, and was dead now. 
Master Shakespeare (I thought) writes 
plays, taking his stories from books; 
methinks he should be here now, 
and see this woman’s heart 
moaning over a dead 
love, — and dream- 
ing of a new. 

h 



XVI. 

/ make Acquaintance of Master l^plfe. 

N OW to go on with this true relation, Master Roife 
and tell what in due time followed. l udy. my 
My Lady Pokahontas (as I still would 
call her) had much converse on holy things 
with the valiant and religious High Mar- 
shal, Sir Thomas Dale, Governor General ; 
and but for being converted, he would 
certes have converted her. For the gain- 
ing of that one soul (he said), he would 
think his time and toil in Virginia well 
spent ; * but this relation showeth that ere 
now she was a Christian. 

Natheless she was young and mirthful, 
and affected company, and others affected 
her. Now among them was a worthy gentle- 
man, some thirty, Master John Roife. For 
all his youth he was a grave, staid man, 
much given to religious exercises, and I 
first surmised his thought as to Poka- 
hontas by his making friends with me. 

* Sir Thomas Dale makes this declaration in a letter to a friend in 
London. 


I talk with 
him. 


108 My Lady Pokahontas 

He would still salute me as he passed into 
the Fort with a bow, and “A pleasant 
morn, Master Todkill,” or “Give you good- 
day, friend.” Thereat I marvelled and 
was pleased, for Master Rolfe was high in 
the Governor’s graces ; but one day when 
we were alone together, I came to know 
his mind, and why he thus affected me. 

“You were one of Captain Smith’s old 
soldiers, were you not, Master Todkill ? ” he 
asked of me. Whereupon I answered Yes, 
for I had fought under him against the 
Turk. 

“ And in Virginia also,” he goes on in 
his grave, friendly voice. " I know the true 
story of old times here, and what manner 
of man Smith was. He is dead now, 
God rest him ; but we build on his founda- 
tion.” 

At this my heart warmed, and I spoke 
to Master Rolfe of the old days, giving my 
dear and noble Captain the character was 
his due. 

“A mighty soldier,, and dwarfs us all,” 
answered Master Rolfe. “ My own life, I 
think, is nothing beside his with his brave 
adventures and great deeds.” 

Thereat, musing, he speaks of himself 
and says : — 


My Lady Pokahontas 109 

“ I was marked early in England, Master 
Todkill, and brought my young wife in 
the fleet under the good Admiral Somers, 
seeking Virginia. But God would not have 
it that she should ever see this virgin 
land. We were on board the Sea- Venture, 
and that was wrecked on the Bermudas. 
There my dear wife died, after giving 
birth to her babe, a girl. I called the 
little cherub sent me, Bermuda , after the 
islands, but she died too, and both rest 
there, and I am alone, Master Todkill.” 

This moved me much, and the talk there 
ended ; but soon I saw that this so great 
wound in the heart of Master Rolfe was 
well-nigh healed, for he had begun to love 
my little Lady Pokahontas. Thereat my 
heart burned within me. Did my Lady 
Pokahontas love him ? That were piteous, 
after Smith ; and a great anger suddenly 
seizes me, most at this Master Rolfe, who 
would steal from my dear Captain this 
heart that belonged to him. Even now 
was this bruit true that Smith was dead ? 
(I said this to myself,) and was Master 
Rolfe the one who had got it believed in 
the Colony ? 

So the next time he meets me and 
would talk of my Lady, I greet him but 


IIO 


The strife in 
bis thoughts. 


My Lady Pokahontas 

coldly, and am silent. Thereat he looks 
strangely at me, as though in sudden pain, 
and heaves a great sigh. 

“You would hold no speech with me, 
then, worthy Master Todkill?” he says 
lowly. “ I know your thought. That great 
soldier was your friend and loved this 
maid; therefore you would not have her 
love me, or I her, I see. Certes ’t is a great 
sin ; I grant you that ; but not to your 
sometime Captain. He is dead, they say ; 
think you he is not ? ” 

“ The bruit saith so,” I answer short, 
“ but I know not whence it comes or who 
hath spread it.” 

“Not I!” cries Master Rolfe. “Would 
to God that true soldier were alive for the 
honour of England ! ” 

“ Say you so ? ” I answered ; “ are you 
honest ?” 

“I swear I am honest, Master Todkill. 
I think him verily to be dead in a combat 
off the Azores, and ’t is no sin in me to 
love her.” 

“ And yet you said ’t was a great sin.” 

“ Certes, in that the Scripture forbids 
a Christian man to marry a strange wo- 
man.” 

Then sudden I see his mind, and being 


Ill 


My Lady Pokahontas 

a Puritan, and not a mere court ruffler, He sees 
think well of this man whose conscience 
hurts him in such a matter. 

“ Say you that ? ” I answer. “ You love 
her, and yet hold back ? ” 

Thereat his face colours up, and he says 
in a loud voice, careless who hears him 
from the Fort, — 

“ Love her ? God knoweth I love her 
with my heart and soul ! Scarce I sleep 
for thinking of her, and yet I know not if 
she thinketh of me, nor if I would have 
her think of me.” 

I listen, but say nothing, looking intent 
at his face. 

“ This gracious creature,” he saith at 
length, “hath made a mighty war in my 
meditations. Long I have struggled, Mas- 
ter Todkill, remembering the displeasure 
God conceived against the sons of Levi 
and Israel for marrying strange wives. 
Doubtless, I said, this is the enemy that 
seeketh man’s destruction, and so rested. 

But then when I had obtained my peace 
behold another gracious tentation hath 
made a breach in my meditations. I see 
her in my sleep, and awake to astonish- 
ment. I am pulled here and there, as it 
were, and a voice crieth, ‘Why do not thou 


1 12 


My Lady Pokahontas 


Why he 
would wed 
her. 


marry her and endeavour to make her a 
Christian ? ’ ” 

“ Know you not she is such now ? ” I 
say. 

“Yes, Master Todkill ; my poor speech 
wanders ; I would confirm her in such holy 
thoughts, for God’s honour and the good 
of the Colony.” 

Such honesty spoke in his voice that I, 
looking at him, grew not so cold to him. 
This he doubtless sees, and says in earnest 
words : — 

“Certes the vulgar sort, who square all 
men’s actions by their own evil thoughts, 
will jeer at me, Master Todkill, and say I 
am only moved by carnal longing ; but 
God, who seeth me, knoweth otherwise. I 
would marry this gracious maiden for his 
glory and the good of his people. I have 
made all known to Him in my daily, yea 
hourly, prayers and meditations ; and sure 
I think He doth approve it. Think what 
good will surely come ! Think how beau- 
tiful is the soul of this creature Pokahon- 
tas ; of her desire to be taught and in- 
structed in the knowledge of God ; her 
capableness of understanding ; her aptness 
and willingness to receive any good im- 
pression ; and I deny not besides this spin 


My Lady Pokahontas 1 1 3 

itual, her owrf incitements stirring me up His trouble. 
hereunto ! ” * 

He stops all in a tremble, and saith : — 

“ What I do is for God’s glory, as God 
seeth me ! ” 

We had walked to the river shore, and 
the tide coming in lapped on the bank, as 
that day when Smith was looking, and my 
Lady stole to him. 

For all the voice of Master Rolfe was 
honest and full of a strange trouble, I still 
was obstinate and could not bring me to 
believe in him. 

“Sure what you say is worthy of a true 
man and a Christian,” I say ; “ but nathe- 
less in such things there is more : the 
consent of the maiden. Howe’er a man’s 
thought be torn whether or no he will wed 
such an one, there remains to know this : 
whether such an one will wed him!' 

Thereat his head drooped down. He 
studied for a time, and answered : — 

“ I know not. I scarce dare hope that, 
after Smith, she will cast eyes on me. 

But think, Master Todkill ; he is dead, as 
I verily believe ; and what better can the 
gracious creature do than bethink her that 

* What Rolfe said in this interview is identical with what he wrote 
in the letter spoken of by Todkill a little further on. 

8 


1 14 My Lady Pokahontas 


He will ask 
counsel. 


one loves her that still liveth and will 
cherish her ? ” 

That was hard to gainsay, and Master 
Rolfe had hit it. Doubtless many bleeding 
hearts have had this to choose : whether 
the past time shall be buried and the old 
love forgot, or not, for a new love that 
offereth. But I could not bear to think of 
it, that my dear Captain should be thus for- 
gotten. 

“What shall I do, Master Todkill?” 
Master Rolfe saith sudden ; but I shake 
my head. 

“ I know not ; seek other to advise you, 
Master Rolfe,” I answer. 

Thereat he heaves another sigh and 
says : — 

“ Yes ; I will tell all in a letter to my 
worthy friend, Sir Thomas Dale. He is a 
valiant and religious man, well instructed 
in divinity, which be rare in a martial man.* 
He shall decide.” 

Wherewith we go back silent, with the 
waves still lapping, to the Fort. 


* Rolfe here borrows an expression which he had no doubt heard 
employed by the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, Minister of the Varina 
parish, and called the “Apostle of Virginia.” He uses it in a letter 
to a friend in London. 



XVII. 

( think , Sure 7 is better to be off with the 
Old Love ere on with the New. 

S OON Master Rolfe writes that letter Master 
in which he would ask Sir Thomas ?°r fe s M 
his consent. I know this from accident. 
Chancing to pass him while he is walking 
by the palisade with Master Raphe Hamor, 
Secretary of the Colony, I must needs 
overhear him (though I would not) say 
these words : — 

“ ’T is written, friend Raphe ; I ask him 
what shall I do ? My whole heart is 
therein, and thou shalt give it him, when 
thou wilt.” 

With that he holds out a letter and 
Master Hamor takes it, smiling, and they 
pass. The opportunity to deliver the letter 
came soon, and I was witness of all ; but 
first some words of my dear Lady Poka- 
hontas. It was ill for me being wroth with 
her, since only my own misery followed. 

And there was nought really to make me 



1 16 My Lady Pokahontas 

My Lady so. Sure not the least thing was to her 

falters. dishonour. This noble princess was yet 

faithful to one that had loved her, though 
he were dead. The old wound was yet sore 
and would not heal up in that time. 

But, welladay ! ever the time went on ; 
and the spring ripened to summer ; and 
then the summer to what in this land we 
call, after Indian fashion, the Leaf-Fall ; 
and ever with the passing days the heart 
of my Lady taketh more ease, and her face 
smiles with a brighter light in it. But 
when some one let fall his name, sudden 
tears would come and she would go away 
sorrowful by herself ; and ever when she 
comes back she lays her hand softly on me, 
looking me in the face as though to say, 
“ We remember, Anas.” 

At such times comes Master Rolfe and 
sits beside her and talks to her, though 
she seems not willing. Long before this 
she was mistress of English, and spoke it 
freely, in her old lisping voice, very low, 
but exceeding sweet. And ever as she 
lisped out her words, I could see the face 
of Master Rolfe flush up as he listened to 
her. Would she ever love him, and what 
good would come of that letter to Sir 
Thomas? (I said.) ’T were a brave jest 


n 7 


My Lady Pokahontas 

indeed to know, if he should marry a maid Her faith in 
who would not ! * Whether his wooing unfaitb ' 
prospered I could not tell from looking at 
my little Lady. Certes she would smile on 
him at times, but the smile was sorrowful ; 
and if she bent her head sidewise, looking 
at him over her shoulder, after the wicked 
wont of maids, soon she looked down and 
sighed grievously, doubtless remembering. 

Sooth to say. Master Rolfe was not so 
strange to love her. She was now clad 
like an English woman, in some clothes 
they had given her, and would deck her- 
self carefully in ruff and stomacher, and 
spend much time on her hair at back of 
her head, seeking to make it curl, and put 
it in a cushion, after the fashion of the 
time. On her feet were Spanish shoes of 
green morocco, with high red heels, show- 
ing her wondrous small feet, with clocked 
stockings on the ankles. Her round arms 
were ever naked, with coral bracelets on 
her wrists ;-and as she moved, the slim 
figure of the maid was like a willow-tree, 
such as groweth on the Virginia rivers. 

Sure ’t was a beauteous vision, with the 
brown face bent forward, and a smile on 

* Todkill’s meaning here seems to be that it was rather comic for 
Rolfe to have scruples as to marrying one who would not marry 

kim. 


n8 My Lady Pokahontas 

My udy the lips and in the eyes ; and looking at 

yidds. ]V[ as ter Rolfe would heave a piteous 

sigh, whereat she must needs laugh. 

But a man’s true love for a woman is 
strong. Much as my little Lady would 
laugh, I could at length see she was giv- 
ing way. They often walked to the shore 
together and came back with heads bent 
down ; and now, I think, she did not so 
much affect my company as before. Often 
she would look at me in a sad, doubtful 
way, as though to say, “An I were to, 
Anas ? ” But never had she speech with me 
save on other things ; never on this one. 

So the winter passed away, and the 
spring was near, and then I came to know 
what would be. One day toward April 
I was wandering in the woods, when the 
sound of voices comes to me from a path 
through the thicket, and these two, my 
Lady and Master Rolfe, pass near me. 
Her head is leaned down and her face is 
red with blushes ; and Master Rolfe is talk- 
ing to her low and earnest as they go by. 
He stops speaking as they come near, 
and for a little time she makes no answer. 
Then I hear only these words from her, 
like the whisper of the south wind in the 
leaves, “Do you really ? ” 


My Lady Pokahontas 119 

They passed on, thereupon, but I could My Captain 
see Master Rolfe take her hand that was tsforgot ' 
hanging down at her side and press it in 
both his, and kiss it. Would she take it 
away ? I waited, with my heart beating. 

She let him hold it in his own, and looked 
up over her shoulder into his eyes that 
were fixed on her. 

Then I knew that my dear Captain was 
forgot at last. 



XVIII. 

We sail up York River with my Lady , and 
what followed. ). 

Master Roi/e ERTES comes to my poor heart a 
conscience V-x great throbbing as I go back to the 
Fort. This was the end ; my little Lady 
had forgot her Captain. I would scarce go 
near her, and she understands that, for she 
looks at me with such tears as her heart 
would break ; and for nigh a week would 
scarce speak so much as a word to Master 
Rolfe. 

But maidens are ever changeful. ’Tis 
at most an April day with such. The rain 
goes, and the shine comes back after the 
shower, and they are brighter than be- 
fore. Soon poor Anas is clean forgot, and 
when they encounter, my little Lady seems 
ashamed to meet his eyes. 

Now to tell what followed. Had Master 
Rolfe determined in his mind that his con- 
science should be quiet as to marrying 
strange wives ? Once he saith it is against 


My Lady Pokahontas 121 

Scripture, and' sure this Lady Pokahontas 
belonged to a cursed generation. Now the 
generation appeareth not so cursed, rather 
blessed, and to be gladly wed with ! Where 
be now the perturbations of his distracted 
soul (as he saith), and those same snares of 
the Evil One set in the black eyes of the 
maid ? When he dreameth of her (if one 
would hear him), he starts from sleep and 
cries, “ Get thee behind me, Satan ! ” But 
natheless he would embrace this fair Satan, 
and make her his Devil’s-helpmate ! and 
the witch herself is willing, and will have 
Master Rolfe to husband. 

All growling, you will say, of poor Anas 
Todkill at his Captain’s being so soon for- 
got, and at him who supplants him : this 
Master Rolfe, who would not wed with 
strange wives y but hath got the better of 
that, and remembers that they that turn 
souls to righteousness shall shine as the stars 
forever ! (Natheless this one was turned 
already, and needed him not.) Again thou 
growlest, Anas ! So be it ; men will growl 
considering love’s wiling, and the doings 
of these farthingales who make us love ’em. 
Not that my little Lady did not yet love 
the soldier she had loved so in old days. 
She loved him deep in her heart of hearts. 


He would 
embrace bis 
fair Satan. 


122 


My Lady Pokabontas 

sir Thomas far more, I think, than this new love. But 
YorK the the old lover was dead, you see, and Mas- 
ter Rolfe pressed strong. He had friends, 
too, that spoke for him : Master Strachey, 
he that writ the “True Repertory of the 
Wrack and Redemption of the Sea-Ven- 
ture,” a civil-spoken gentleman ; and also 
Master Raphe Hamor, who took the letter 
for Sir Thomas Dale, to ask his counsel. 

Now I will relate how this letter was de- 
livered and what strange matter followeth. 

To go back : when Powhatan hears his 
daughter is taken a prisoner and carried 
to Jamestown he is bitter offended, and 
keepeth silence ; when messengers go to 
him from Sir Thomas and say the Lady 
Pokahontas shall be sent back when cer- 
tain Englishmen, who are captives, with 
their muskets, are given up to us, Pow- 
hatan will not, and still keeps quiet. 
Thereon Sir Thomas bethinks him he will 
go and take ’em, and in the March days of 
this year 1613 sails with picked men in a 
ship by Point Comfort into York River, 
and so to Werowocomoco. He takes my 
Lady Pokahontas with him, and in the ship 
goeth also Master John Rolfe, who is a 
worshipful gentleman and high in his hon- 
our’s favour. My lady is sad and smiling 


My Lady Pokahontas 123 

by turns on the way, Sir Thomas his in- 
tent being to surrender her when the arms 
are brought with the English prisoners by 
Powhatan. 

At Werowocomoco was no Powhatan, 
but a great multitude of Indians on the 
bank of the river, who jeered loud as we 
came near shore, and with scornful bravado 
affronted us, demanding, “ Why come you 
hither ? Y ou are welcome if you come to 
fight ; we will use you as we used Captain 
Ratcliffe.” Then they let fly their arrows, 
at which we manned boats and went 
ashore. There we burned all their houses 
and spoiled all they had ; and going to 
ship again sailed up the river. 

Now to tell what next happed, and how 
the mind of my little Lady was at last 
known to all. We got to Machot, Ope- 
chancanough’s capital city, where the York 
River divideth,* and went ashore in a 
great crowd, sending to Powhatan who was 
in the woods, to tell our minds. We had 
brought Pokahontas, and would deliver her 
whenas the arms were brought ; and Mas- 
ter John Rolfe and one more were sent on 
this errand. They went with guides to the 

* The present West Point, at the confluence of the Pamunkey and 
Mattapony. 


We land at 
Machot . 


124 My Lady Pokahontas 

My Lady’s Emperor’s woods palace, but he not choos- 
melnour. ing to see them (of his grim humour) sent 
back a vain message as all would be well ; 
but no further. 

At this Sir Thomas Dale concludes the 
Emperor but trifles with him, and is about 
giving orders to lay waste all houses and 
boats and the very fish weirs, when sud- 
den happens what stops all. To make this 
plain : my Lady Pokahontas, in a brave 
gown, and looking very proud, had come 
ashore with the rest. Scarce she spoke to 
any of her people, only to say to the bet- 
ter sort with a proud and hurt voice : — 

“If my father loved me he would not 
value me less than old swords, pieces, or 
axes ; so I will still dwell with the Eng- 
lishmen, who love me.” 

Thereat she turned her head a little and 
looked at Master Rolfe, who smiled as ap- 
proving, and signed with his hand to her, 
and to Master Raphe Hamor, who was 
standing near. Then I see this Master 
Hamor go to Sir Thomas and give him a 
letter, and I know in my heart it is Mas- 
ter Rolfe’s letter about the marriage, ask- 
ing Sir Thomas his consent, and what 
ought he to do. When Sir Thomas Dale 
opens the folds of paper he looketh a little 


/2 5 


Mv Lzdy Pokahontas 

puzzled at first ; then he turns to the end m utter. 
to see by whom ’t is writ. Seeing there, 
doubtless, Master Rolfe’ s name, he look- 
eth toward him, but he is in some con- 
fusion ; and chancing to behold the Lady 
Pokahontas at this same minute, I see she 
is blushing red and hanging down her 
head. 

Sir Thomas goes back and peruses the 
letter with a grave look : but soon his face 
lights up and, holding back his head with 
his beard in the air, he laughs loud. 

“ Ho, ho ! ” he says, turning to Master 
Rolfe ; “ thou art a sly one ! What is this ? 
never you said a word of it, though we 
were oft together, Master Rolfe.” 

“ I durst not,” says Rolfe all of a tremble. 

“ I feared thou wouldst say nay, good Sir 
Thomas.” 

“ So you held all back ! ” 

“ Yea, Sir Thomas, till this moment. 

But now you needs must know, since you 
would burn all, and destroy these poor peo- 
ple that are ” — 

“ Madame Rolfe’s kindred ! ” cries Sir 
Thomas, laughing loud and looking from 
him to Pokahontas. Thereat she blushes, 
but suddenly starts and goes forward very 
quick. Her brother Nantaquaus pushes 


Wantaquaus. 


126 My Lady Pokahontas 

through the crowd and catches her close to 
his breast and kisses her. Never saw I 
faces shine so, and they babble and kiss 
and she tells him all ; for a great wonder 
comes to his face, the comeliest I ever saw 
in a savage. 

‘‘Would you ? would you ? ” he says, hav- 
ing a few English words. Whereto Poka- 
hontas laughs, and says : — 

“ Yes, I would, Nantaquaus ! ” 

And she laughs and cries, and hugs him 
close ; and Sir Thomas Dale comes and 
laughs too. All is peace now, he says. 

“ Since we English and the red beauties 
will get to marrying,” so saith Sir Thomas, 
“ there need be no more war, but blessed 
peace. Know you what is writ in this 
letter, my Lady Princess ? I see thou dost, 
by thy roses. Master Rolfe would marry 
thee — hath doubtless read thee this billet- 
doux” 

Thereat Pokahontas hangs down her 
head and her bosom heaveth. 

“ But his Majesty King James ! What 
will his Majesty say ? Master Rolfe is but 
a private gentleman, and he would wed a 
princess. That were lesi majesty I much 
fear, and his Majesty will grow irate.* But 

* It is known that his Majesty King James I. did “ grow irate.” 


My Lady Pokahontas 127 

natheless tho,u shalt marry, poor young 
people ! I will not say thee nay.” 

Thereat Master Rolfe clasps his hand 
and cries : — 

“ Thou art my best friend, Sir Thomas ! ” 

He pumps with Sir Thomas his arm, 
but the Marshal sudden looks grave, — 
though I see a wicked smile under it. 

“ There be but one only hindrance, but 
that is mighty, Master Rolfe.” 

“ What be that hindrance, Sir Thomas ? ” 
saith Master Rolfe quaking. 

“ The Scripture forbiddeth marrying 
strange wives ; remember the displeasure 
the Almighty conceived against the sons 
of Levi and Israel ! ” 

Thereat Rolfe looks confused and stam- 
mers : — 

“ Natheless ” — 

“ Whereof thy dreams did warn thee, 
good Master Rolfe ! ” continues Sir Thomas 
laughing sudden. “ Remember thy per- 
turbations and the troubles of thy dis- 
tracted soul ! Hath the trouble clean gone 
now ?” 

I, Anas Todkill, hearing these words, 
could have gladly caught the Marshal to 
my breast and cried, “ Thanks ! ” But the 
laughter endeth, for Master Rolfe would, 


The Mar- 
shal’s 
pleasant 
jest. 


Peace now. 


128 My Lady Pokahontas 

it seemeth, sink in the ground ; and Sir 
Thomas saith : — 

“I did but jest. Why should not you 
and the Lady Pokahontas marry? Yea, 
you shall, and a brave wedding.” 

He turns to my Lady then and says with 
the bow of a courtier : — 

“ I will not give you for the men and 
old muskets now, my little Lady ! ” 

This endeth the talk with them, and Sir 
Thomas goes apart with Opechancanough 
(sith the Emperor Powhatan is afraid to 
come to the English, or will not), and they 
make terms of peace. The men and pieces 
shall be brought now and given unto the 
English ; and Sir Thomas will not fulfill 
his intent to destroy the heathen. Rather 
he will be close friends with them, since 
now one of his gentlemen will wed with 
their princess. 

Thus all is soon agreed, and for proof of 
friendship the ship is loaded with corn ; 
and in two hours the prisoned English are 
brought and the pieces with ’em. Then 
my lady puts her arms round Nantaquaus, 
blushing much the while, and whispers 
something in his ear, which I know after- 
wards is this : — 

“Thou shalt tell the Emperor, brother 


129 


My Lady Pokahontas 

Nantaquaus, ^nd say his wanton would And so to 
have him willing she should marry this Jam6Sto ' u>n ' 
English werowance. Thou wilt come to 
the church ; it will be fair with flowers ; 
and tell my sisters Cleopatre and Mata- 
channa to come too, for maids to the 
bride, — who will be I.” 

Thereat she laughs and cries, kissing 
him, and goes on the ship ; and Sir Thomas, 
firing culverins to show the peace made, 
sails down York River and so comes again 
to Jamestown. 

Now not to tarry longer here, see how 
this angel made peace between the Eng- 
lish and her own people. She that had 
saved us now saved them in their time 
of need. For Sir Thomas had surely 
ground them between the upper and the 
nether mill-stone, but for the knowledge 
that Master Rolfe would wed her and they 
all would live at peace. 

So this angel (God forgive thee, Anas !) 
was once more the guardian angel of 
the white and red people in this land of 
Virginia.* 

* Todkill’s relation of these incidents exactly agrees with that 
of Raphe Hamor in his True Discourse of Virginia. This rare 
pamphlet also contains Rolfe’s letter, a most curious production, and 
a letter written to London by Sir Thomas Dale precisely corroborat- 
ing Todkill’s narrative. 

9 



XIX. 

How my Lady Pokahontas asketh, — Must 
she ? 

oid memo - XT OW my little Lady would no longer 
1 ^ speak to me ; nor cared I to speak to 
her. Sith she hath forgot (I say) him who 
loved her so dearly, and taken up with this 
new gallant, even let her go, and the Divell 
go with her (God forgive thee, Anas !). 

But I was wroth, and a man when wroth 
will foul his lips and his mind, that is worse, 
with these abominations. Try as I would, 
I could not forego the memory how they 
walked together in the old days and how 
she looked at him. Ever she would pluck 
the wild wood flowers for her hair, and 
put them therein, and then take them 
forth and hold ’em out to him , and say in 
her little lisping tongue, “ For thee that 
art the flower of gentilesse and honour ! ” 
And now these same flowers were for an- 
other love ; and this other were the bright, 
blooming exemplar! Brief, she who had 


My Lady Pokahontas 1 31 

forgot the man I loved so should be forgot My Lady is 
by me. So I would not go nigh nor speak bapti<ed ‘ 
to her. 

Did she care for that ? I knew not, 
but many things distracted her thoughts 
and time at this season. Sir Thomas Dale, 
the valiant and religious High Marshal, 
was ever with her. For this soldier was a 
man of great knowledge in divinity and 
of a good conscience ; and would still in- 
struct my Lady Pokahontas in the knowl- 
edge of our Blessed Saviour. 

Now the time comes for her baptism, 
and good Master Whitaker performeth it, 
sprinkling water on her from the fount in 
the church, where attendeth a great mul- 
titude. She is new named Rebecca ; for 
what saith Holy Writ, “And the Lord said 
unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, 
and two manner of people shall be sepa- 
rated from thy bowels ; ” and further de- 
clareth the holy record, Rebekah did con- 
ceive twins “and the first came out red? 

So she that was to marry an Englishman, 
being herself one of a strange people, was 
to be called Rebecca, since she would be 
mother of two nations. 

This done, my Lady and her maidens go 
to their vain work of making clothes, and 


The gabble 
of tongues. 


132 My Lady Pokahontas 

what not, for the day when she would wed. 
Oft I go by the window and see ’em sitting 
within and gabbling, now this, now that ; 
would this ruffle look best, or this ribband, 
what think you ? Jibber-jabber, click-clack ! 
— never was such clatter of tongues ! For 
these farthingales must talk ; else for want 
of it they die (I think). And they talk 
so they deafen me, and I go by quick not 
to hear ’em. Not my Lady ; she talks but 
little, and seemeth to care nought for all 
the finery. Her face is sorrowful, and oft 
she sitteth with her needle in her hand, 
looking far away, as one that listens to 
other things than click-clack. But I go 
not near her and she cometh not near me, 
seeming to shun me as I would her. 

So passeth the April days, and the flow- 
ers are blooming now, and I think, she will 
have some to deck the church the day she 
marrieth. ’T will be, sure, a merry wed- 
ding ! All look to it as a joyous festival 
wherein two hearts will be joined together 
in holy matrimony, and so be one, — till 
they get to scratching ! One only seem- 
eth not to look forward thus, a certain sour 
Anas Todkill. Now and again when he 
meeteth Master Rolfe he can do no less 
than scowl at him ; and when this same 


My Lady Pokabontas 133 

Master Rolfe goeth to visit the Lady Po- / take my 
kahontas, and I see her blush and look at a ghost. 
him softly (through the window which 
they had best shut), I go off growling. 

So as the day is near I take a fancy, I 
know not how, and one day set out and 
come to the Place of Retreat on Ware 
Ridge, where I went with my Captain that 
day. It is near evening when I get there 
through the spring woods, and I go up 
the steep path near overgrown with laurel 
bushes till I reach the ruinous Fort, where- 
on the slant sun is now shining. Why I 
come hither, I say, I know not ; for want of 
other to do, it may be, and to see if I can- 
not once more catch sight here of him who 
is here no longer now, being a dead man. 

Instead of Smith I see one other, my 
Lady Pokahontas. She is seated on the 
very brown stone where she sat by Smith, 
and crying. 

I stop in the edge of the laurel thicket, 
thinking I see a spirit. Sure the Lady 
Pokahontas is yonder at Jamestown, in 
the midst of the click-clack (I say with a 
shuddering voice), and this is her ghost. 

But the ghost looks up at the sound of 
crackling twigs and would fly, but sudden 
stops. 


Love’s 

cbidings. 


/ 34 My Lady Pokahontas 

“Oh, Anas! Is it thou?” she cries. 
“ What brought thee hither ? ” 

With which she covers her face with 
both hands and begins to weep. I look at 
her for a time, feeling a great war in my 
thoughts ; but she continueth to sob, and 
that sound smites me with a great pity, 
and compassion, and love, so that I haste 
to her and draw away her hands. 

“ Let me ! let me ! ” she faltereth. “ It 
is for him that is dead ! He was here, 
thou dost remember. Would I too were 
dead ! ” 

Could I scoff ? Anas Todkill had never- 
more thought well of himself had he done 
so. 

“ Quiet thee,” I say low ; “ I remember 
well, and thou too dost remember ! v 

“ Can I forget him ? ” she says. And 
then bursts forth all about him, and how 
she loved him more than all the world ; 
and last, would not marry Master Rolfe, 
no she would never ! 

Then cometh a hard thing for Anas 
Todkill to do. Was 1 to commend her for 
this, or say, No, thou must not break faith? 
Sure this were a vile sin now to counsel 
this poor maid to show faith by unfaith ; 
and, remaining faithful to the dead, be 


My Lady Pokahontas 1 35 

faithless by breaking faith with the living. Sbewiiino\ 
This comes in my mind, and I say, Steady wiu yet $b ‘ 
Anas ! Then to her : — 

“ Thou must marry Master Rolfe,” I say, 
with a throb at the heart. 

Thereat she looketh at me quick and 
saith : — 

“ I will not ! Must I ? No, never ! How 
could I ? And yet — yea, I should break 
faith.” 

“Thou must keep thy faith,” I say, 

“ whatever betide ; it is I that counsel 
thee.” 

“Dost thou?” she says weeping; “must 
I?” 

“Yes, thou must.” 

“ Why look at me as thou hast looked of 
late, then ? ” (There was a shot for thee, 

Anas !) “ But now thou art my truest 

friend. See, I listen ; must I ? ” 

“ We will talk of that,” I say as we go 
back. “ How didst thou come hither ? ” 

I take my Lady’s hand and draw her from 
the place, for the sun is now near setting ; 
she telling me ’t is but a little way for a 
wildwood maid like herself, and she stole 
off and came alone. 

So we go back through the sunset and 
the night to Jamestown, whereof we see 


1 36 My Lady Pokahontas 

i \fy promise, the lights shining now through the woods 
and on the water. 

“ Must I ? ” she says a last time, stop- 
ping ere she reach the Fort. 

“Yes,” I say. 

“And thou — wilt thou still speak to me, 
and love me, and live with me, nay in my 
very house ? Promise, Anas ! then I will 
obey thee.” 

She holds my hand and looks in my 
face, smiling through tears, and I bend 
down and kiss the little brown hand. 

“ I will live with thee and be thy hench- 
man till I die,” I say. “ It is little to prom- 
ise thee, since twice I owed my life 
to thee.” So then we pass by 
the Fort and cry, “ Friends ! ” 
to the guard that chal- 
lenged, and my 
Lady is home. 



XX. 


My Lady leaneth on a Tree and weepefh. 

N OW the wedding of Master Rolfe and 
the Lady Pokahontas is over quick. 
It takes place in the church at Jamestown 
two days after this talk in the woods of 
Ware. 

Never saw I gayer sight. The cedar 
pews were wreathed with flowers, for this 
Virginia land hath divers in April, — what 
we call the old field daisy and other. Sure 
the flowers were sweet and heartsome, 
though I approve not this vain popish 
fashion of decking the sanctuary with 
such ; and a great crowd filled the church, 
(whereof the bells in the west tower were 
ringing), pushing into the cedar pews 
quite up to the chancel and walnut com- 
munion table. I well remember me the 
strange sight of buff jerkins and gold-laced 
doublets rubbing dusky, naked shoulders of 
Indian chiefs, with feathers on heads, bow 
in hand. Many heathen had come to see 
their Lady Pokahontas wed the white face ; 


The wed * 
ding. 


Opacbisco 
makes all 
laugh. 


138 My Lady Pokahontas 

and the bride marches up the aisle with 
Master Rolfe and her old uncle Opachisco, 
a conjurer with a wondrous wrinkled face, 
and behind these advanceth, with his head 
up like a young deer of the forest, the 
lady’s best beloved brother Nantaquaus. 

My Lady Pokahontas weareth a white 
robe with down thereon, and a long white 
veil falling on her shoulders. Her face of 
a light brown, most like a Spanish maid- 
en’s, was all tears and blushes ; and for all 
the gay scene there was a hid sorrow in 
her eyes. So Master Rolfe, with some 
show of bravery in his grave apparel, takes 
his place on her right hand ; and you may 
see from his face that all his passion of 
doubt hath left him ! that he thinketh no 
more of the sin of marrying strange wives ; 
but is blithe and glad now. He was near 
laughing, I think, for joy ; and sudden a 
great loud laugh greeteth what happens in 
the church. 

Good Master Whitaker, of the Rock 
Hall parish at Varina, performeth the cere- 
mony, in his surplice and bands, with rev- 
erent face above ; and when he says Who 
giveth this woman ? sudden wrinkled old 
Opachisco shoves the bride forward so she 
near falls on the chancel, and says some- 


'39 


My Lady Pokahontas 

what in his outlandish tongue ; whereat How all 
all burst out laughing. ended ' 

So the two are man and wife, and Nan- 
taquaus comes up and puts both his arms 
round my Lady and she around him, and 
they mouth and babble, and I see more 
tears in her eyes. Then the bells ring 
once more, and the people talk and shake 
hands and go about their business. 

Of that day I recall no more, being in 
no good humour, and soon home, till even- 
ing when something happens. 

I go out in a boat on the James River 
as though to fish, but in sooth to be by 
myself and think of this wondrous busi- 
ness. I stay there till nigh sunset, when 
I paddle in, and coming round a bend of 
trees, sudden I see my Lady, leaning against 
that tree Smith leaned on that day when I 
saw them together. 

She is lying against it and weeping, with 
her robe over her face. She seeth me not 
and I would not have her; so I come 
ashore and tie my boat and go back soft 
to the palisade, thinking my thoughts. 


The dead 
ove. 



XXI. 

Of the City of Henricus and my Lady's Little 
Divell that was made a Christian . 

N OW see how this strange business 
cometh to an end at last. She who 
marries one is yet in love with another, who 
is dead, or thought to be, which were the 
same. Women (and men too) will still do 
that, and sure I think Master Will Shake- 
speare might have writ a drama on this 
theme. He writ his “ Tempest ” instead, 
which is sure a wondrous picture ; but this 
were greater. For (once more) she that 
thus marrieth one, loveth another with all 
her heart ; only she consoleth herself by 
saying low, “ My true love is dead.” 

Natheless fate is strong and the years 
be hard masters. He that is dead, though 
he be not forgot, is no longer here ; so my 
Lady goeth weeping to her bridal and is 
now Mistress Rolfe. 

I say not she continueth to weep. She 
is young yet ; and that blessed youth is like 
the sap of a tree which will push strong to 


My Lady Pokahontas 141 

cover up a gash in the trunk, be it never The city of 
so deep. My Lady gets back her smiles Henrtcus ’ 
now, and ere long she findeth somewhat 
more to think of than dead loves, in two 
little black eyes that stare at her, while a 
red mouth babbles. 

This not at Jamestown, but at Master 
Rolfe his plantation, called Farmingdell, 
not far from the City of Henricus, on the 
upper waters of the James River. Now a 
word, ere I pass to other matters, of this 
famous city of Henricus at Varina, — so 
named after his Highness the noble Prince 
Henry, who ere long dieth, — whereof the 
founder was Sir Thomas Dale, the High 
Marshal of Virginia. Though this true re- 
lation of my Lady Pokahontas be writ for 
that great dame’s honour, and most I would 
speak of her, yet somewhat too of things 
in the first Virginia days ; which in years 
to come may be read by Virginia people 
with some little interest (perchance). 

For when my Lord la Ware sends out his 
Lieutenant Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, 
in the year 1611, the High Marshal his 
hands are free, and with some three hun- 
dred men he goes up James River and 
founds this City of Henricus at Varina. 
Arrohattox is the name of the country 


y 42 My Lady Pokahontas 

Hope-in- there, being one of the five domains which 

Faith there. descended to the Emperor Powhatan from 
his ancestors ; and never saw you so 
strange a sight as the river is there. It 
runneth this way and that, most like a 
great snake wriggling as he dieth ; and 
where the city was built is in a peninsula, 
where the river maketh a great loop; so 
that, after some seven miles, it cometh 
back to one hundred yards of the same 
place. This narrow neck is a defence 
against Indians, and is called the “Dutch 
Gap,” — for by order of Sir Thomas his 
Dutch people begin to dig a channel there 
to let the river through, but stop the work. 

Now the city is soon built on the 
plateau inside, with three streets, a fair 
church, and a palisade across the narrow 
neck ; also one two miles long from river 
to river outside in the main.* On the 
south bank is another palisade, which in- 
closeth a great tract, and Forts Charity and 
Patience, Hope -in- Faith and Mount Mi- 
lado ; also Rock Hall, Master Whitaker’s 
parsonage. And now if you ask me why 
Hope-in-Faith , which be a Puritan name, 
I answer ’t was I that named it, and Sir 
Thomas Dale saith : — 


* The main land. 


*43 


My Lady Pokahontas 

" Content ! Thou shalt call it such, Mas- jam to be 
ter Anas ! Thou wert once a conspira- welcome * 
tor and nigh I would bore thy tongue, 
but thou art a true man now, Heaven be 
thanked.” 

But to tell of my Lady, and how I came 
to live with her here. Whenas Master 
Rolfe would go from Jamestown to this 
plantation called Farmingdell, near Hen- 
ricus, he saith to me, looking grave and 
friendly : — 

“ Hast thou not promised some one 
something, Master Todkill ? ” 

“ Doubtless men promise many things, 

Master Rolfe,” I say, making show I un- 
derstand not. 

“What thou hast promised, good Anas, 
is to live with my Lady,” he says ; “ and 
now as a worthy man thou must keep it. 

If thou come to my home thou shalt be 
welcome as my Lady’s old and true friend, 
and perchance thou might write somewhat 
for me, since Sir Thomas would have me 
for Secretary of the Colony.” 

This pleases me much ; but I would not 
say yes, all of a sudden, lest my grum looks 
at this happy couple (thinking of Smith) 
make me unwelcome. But a voice comes 
behind me while I ponder so : — 


I go to 

Farming' 

dell. 


144 My Lady Pokahontas 

“ Thou didst promise me ! ” 

And I turn quick and see my Lady, one 
foot lifted and her face wet as she looks 
at me. 

“ Thou didst say thou wouldst ! ” she 
murmurs. 

And there that ends. I go to Farming- 
dell, and am made much of there, and have 
a good room which my Lady would still 
tend with her own hands, making all things 
neat when the maid had gone. The house 
is a good house, with a palisade against 
Indians, and Master Rolfe hath rich low 
grounds where he showeth me he can raise 
the wild weed tobacco; for he hath done 
so.* I talk with him thereon and cry : — 

“ Fie ! wouldst thou ? Why plant this 
foul weed that leadeth only to imbecility?” 
But he laughs and says, It is a comfort to 
man, and not forbid by Holy Writ ; he him- 
self hath come to love it, and smokes his 
pipe while he thinks. 

Now to speak no more of tobacco, 
whereof his Majesty King James hath just 
writ his “ Counterblast,” somewhat happens 

* This accords with the statement in Hamor’s True Discourse , 
that Rolfe first domesticated this plant, hitherto wild, in the year 
1612, which was just before Todkill’s coming. “ Farmingdell ” was 
just below Varina ; and the region was so called by Sir Thomas Dale 
from the fact that the tobacco raised there was so fine as to resemble 
the sweet-scented Spanish Verinas of the West Indies. 


My Lady Pokahontas 145 

at this house of Farmingdell which hap- My Lady 
peneth oft elsewhere. My Lady keepeth 
her chamber a little while, and then cometh 
forth with a young Master Rolfe, whom she 
holdeth up to me, and saith with bright 
eyes : — 

“ Saw you ever such a wanton, Anas ! ” 

Thereat she putteth the boy in my arms 
and saith to him : — 

“ Go to thy best friend, child, who is the 
best friend of thy mother ! ” 

And the child hugs to me and lays his 
face against my beard and is content there ; 
whereupon I begin to love him, and love 
him more and more as the days pass. 

I would have him named John Smith — 
this Smith being (so to say) a friend of 
the family in old years ; but I say not this 
to any one, much more to my Lady, for fear 
her tears come. And they say he shall be 
named Thomas.* 

The christening of Master Thomas Rolfe 
was a great merrymaking at Varina, and 

* The birthplace of Thomas Rolfe, the only child of Pokahontas, 
has heretofore been a disputed question. The only record elsewhere 
is in the General History , where it is said : “ During this time the 
Lady Rebecca, alias Pokahontas, daughter to Powhatan, by the dili- 
gent care of Master Iohn Rolfe, her husband, and his friends, was well 
instructed in Christianity; she had also by him a child, which she 
loved most dearly.” Thomas Rolfe was thus a Virginian by birth, 
and persons of note descended from him, — among others, John 
Randolph of Roanoke. 


146 My Lady Pokahontas 

The Apostle hugely delighted Sir Thomas, who had his 
of Virginia. k ome t h erej as a i so Master Whitaker, as 

the first-fruits of heathennesse, and the 
promise of the New Jerusalem. For this 
Marshal Dale was a student of divinity, 
which be rare, as I said, in a martial man. 
He and good Master Whitaker, parson of 
Rock Hall parish, who is called in England 
the “Apostle of Virginia,” are close friends, 
as is fit. For this Master Whitaker is a 
true man, who hath left his warm nest at 
home to come to the new land ; where soon 
he writes his “ Good News from Virginia,” 
wherein he crieth, “ Awake, you true Eng- 
lishmen ! remember the Plantation is God’s 
and the reward your country’s ! ” * 

Sorrowful am I to say that ere two 
twelvemonths have passed, this good Apos- 
tle of Virginia, who saith he will stay “ till 
he be called hence,” is called hence by 
God ; he being drowned by the upsetting 
of his boat, in crossing the James River 
from Rock Hall to Henricus. 

As yet he laboureth and catechiseth the 
children, Indian and others, in the new 
school of Henricus ; certain axe-men and 
men-at-arms, too, that would hear the 

* This pamphlet, containing an earnest appeal for help to convert 
the Indians, was published in the very year Todkill’s relation has 
now reached — 1613. 


My Lady Pokahontas 147 

blessed message. He is ever at Sir Thomas 
Dale his house, and they dispute on divin- 
ity ; but sudden all stops when Pokahon- 
tas her child is to be christened. 

It is done in Varina church, and Master 
Whitaker, who hath married my Lady, now 
takes in his arms her child, and sprinkleth 
water on him, whereat he laughs and bab- 
bles ; and then we go out, while my Lady 
holds him, and kisses him, looking at him 
with mother’s eyes that would eat him ; 
for in sooth she loveth him dearly. So 
back to the Farmingdell house, and my 
Lady looks happy and content ; and I must 
fain hold the boy, and say to him, as he 
nestleth to me : — 

“ Thou little Divell that art now a Chris- 
tian ! I wish thee well ! ” 

Now my Lady stayeth but this time (yet) 
in Virginia, and I continue her henchman ; 
and we talk together much, oft of him 
who is gone. At such time she looketh at 
me with sad eyes, and then to her husband, 
as though to say, “ Do not thou think ill of 
me if I love still a dead one I once loved.” 
Sure never was more gracious creature 
than this Lady Pokahontas ; and to be be- 
side her was my chiefest happiness. But 
to write more hereof would weary; and 


He cbristettt 
the. child. 


Rawhunt 
who was 
Caliban. 


148 My Lady Pokahontas 

with somewhat more (not much) of what 
takes place in this land of Virginia, we will 
go back home to England. 

But first of what maketh me laugh 
much, how I see again the Emperor Pow- 
hatan and on what business we went 
Since her wedding Master Rolfe, he and 
my Lady see each the other no more — 
why, I know not. He would have it so, and 
sendeth her word (they say) she must now 
live with him she weddeth, and not come 
back to the woods : if he ever visiteth the 
English (which he will not), he will be to 
see her. 

But they have commerce and good will,* 
and to and fro cometh the Emperor’s 
henchman, a deformed humpback they call 
Rawhunt, bringing venison and what not, 
with the King’s love to his child. She 
sendeth back what will please him, as 
beads and such stuff ; and writeth some- 
thing on willow bark in strange figures, 
what I know not. 

Scarce I think to see the great Emperor 
more, but that time now cometh, whereof I 
will speak. But first, this Rawhunt is Cali- 
ban in Master Shakespeare his “Tempest,” 


* This is also the statement of the old historian Stith, writing iir 
the next century. 


149 


My Lady Pokahontas 

as I after know. From the first he hath 
come to Jamestown, to and back, and they 
that go to England report of him, as of 
Pokahontas. Whereof cometh knowl- 
edge to Master Shakespeare, who 
useth all ; making his strange 
Caliban of this dwarf, as 
his Miranda of my 
Lady Pokahon- 
tas. 



Who was 
Miranda. 



XXII. 

Of the Trick the High Marshal would play 
on the Emperor, hut he would not. 

/ see tbe Em- T)UT to speak, ere we go from Virginia, 
ust° r time. tbe J-3 of my last look at the great Powhatan. 

Sure never was such food for laughter as 
on this visit to the Emperor. Even now, 
long after, when I think of it I burst out 
sudden, so that they around me cry, “ What 
aileth thee ? ” and I answer, “ I but be- 
think me of old days in the woods of Vir- 
ginia, with his highness the Emperor Pow- 
hatan.” 

It comes about in this wise. I have 
told ofttimes what manner of man was the 
builder of Henricus city, the mighty and 
valiant Sir Thomas Dale, who, though none 
exceeded him in divinity as in courage, 
was a subtle master of policy and would 
gain good ends by crooked ways ; whereof 
this showeth. 

Though the Indians were now peaceful, 
yet they never were safe; and the bruit 


My Lady Pokahontas / 5/ 

coming to our ears that the Paspaheghs we find him 
and Nansemunges were ill affected to- at ac °‘ 
ward us, Sir Thomas Dale bethinks him to 
make sure of them by this strange device : 

(namely) Powhatan was their Emperor, and 
to have from him a hostage, which Master 
Raphe Ham or was sent to get. This was 
Powhatan’s young daughter Cleopatre, sis- 
ter of my Lady Pokahontas, whereof you 
shall see by this relation, and what honour 
the High Marshal designed her. 

I, Anas Todkill, was one of the party 
sent to visit King Powhatan; and going 
by the desert* we came to Machot, where 
we found the King in his great arbour, 
with a guard of two hundred bowmen. He 
was seated on his couch of mats with his 
wives and chiefs about him, and offered 
us a pipe of tobacco ; whereafter he would 
know our errand. Master Hamor then 
riseth and saith : — 

“ I come from your Brother Dale, and 
would speak with you in private.” 

At this the King studied a little, and 
sent out all but his two queens that al- 
ways did sit by him, and the interpreter, 

* In the old relations this word is used in the sense of thicket or 
wilderness : as the “ desert of Pamunkey,” meaning the thick woods 
wholly uninhabited. Machot was at the present West Point on the 
York. 


1^2 My Lady Pokahontas 

Brother Dale who was that same young Henry Spilman, 
bn message. ^ cousin, saved from death by dear Poka- 
hontas. 

“ Now speak,” says the King (or Em- 
peror), “for I listen.” 

As he said these words, he stretched 
his legs out of his raccoon-skin robe and 
kicked a brand on to the fire so awkward 
that all laughed, but he looked grave. 

Then Master Hamor, looking at him, 
says : — 

“ Your Brother Dale sends you this cop- 
per and these blue beads, also these two 
knives, and will send you also a grindstone 
if you listen to what he asks.” 

“What does Brother Dale ask?” the 
King says by his interpreter, viewing the 
beads and the rest ; whereat Master Ha- 
mor clears his throat and thus answers : — 

“The bruit of the exquisite perfection 
of your youngest daughter, being spread 
through all your territories, hath come to 
the hearing of your Brother Dale, who hath 
sent me. He entreats you as his brother 
to permit this maiden to return with me.” 

“ Return ! ” cries the King suddenly ; 
“ why return ? ” 

“ For her sister’s desire to see her ; and 
another end still.” 


My Lady Pokahontas 153 

“ What end?” says his Majesty; “why 
desireth Brother Dale to see my child ? ” 

“ He would gladly make her his nearest 
companion, wife, and bedfellow.” 

But the King would hardly hear Master 
Hamor. He moves about and gets up ; 
now and then he kicks brands on the fire ; 
once he pulls his wife’s ears, and then 
sits down, muttering. But Master Hamor 
would not notice these signs that his er- 
rand was not to the King’s desire. 

“ Hear me to an end,” he says to Pow- 
hatan : whereat the Emperor leaneth back 
as though asleep. 

“ The reason whereof your Brother Dale 
would make your daughter his wife is to 
rivet a natural union between us, and ever 
be friends. He himself means to dwell in 
Virginia while he liveth, and would have 
perpetual friendship.” 

Then hearing that this is the end, the 
King rises and kicks at the fire, and then 
speaks thus by his interpreter : — 

“ I gladly accept Brother Dale’s salute, 
but my daughter whom he desireth I sold 
within these few days past, to be wife to 
a great werowance, for two bushels of roa- 
noke (which is their money), and she is 
gone three days’ journey from me.” 


He would 
wed the 
Emperor’s 
daughter. 


i$4 Mv Lady Pokahontas 

ne Emperor But Master Hamor would not hearken, 

asketh of my , . . 

Lady. and said : — 

“ Your greatness and power is such that, 
to gratify Brother Dale, you might give up 
the roanoke and take back your daughter 
from that chief. She is not yet twelve 
years old, and should yet tarry a space. 
This meaneth your Brother Dale, who en- 
treats you to spare her.” 

But the Emperor shakes his head, for- 
getting his vain story of the great wero- 
wance (his daughter being there with 
him). 

“ I love my child dear as my own life,” 
he says, “and though I have many chil- 
dren, I delight in none so much as her. 
If I did not often behold her I could not 
possibly live ; and if she lived with you at 
your Fort, you know I could not see her. 
You have one daughter now; when she 
dieth you shall have another ; but she yet 
liveth. So no more ; and now to tell me 
of my daughter Pokahontas and my un- 
known son. How do they like, live, and 
love together? ” 

Master Hamor, in no gay mood at being 
disappointed, says : — 

“Your daughter is so well content that 
she would not change her life to return 


My Lady Pokahontas 155 

and live with you again, though you be- 
sought her.” 

Thereat Powhatan laughs heartily, and 
says : “ I am very glad of it : ” and again 
lies down on his bed, now and then laugh- 
ing a little at his thoughts. Soon he sits 
up once more, as who should say, Art thou 
done now ? and will not hearken any more, 
but trifles the time, playing with his blue 
beads. Last he sends his Brother Dale this 
greeting : None of his people shall trou- 
ble us ; and adds, proudly : “ I, which have 
power to perform it, have said it.” 

So homeward, and ere long we are back 
at the city of Henricus, where my Lady 
Pokahontas listens to our adventure and 
sighs, and I think her old wood life cometh 
back to her. At what Master Hamor re- 
porteth, Sir Thomas Dale says, laughing: 

“ So be it ; I am content, and perchance 
’t is better. I scarce could make up this 
matter of the new wife with my Lady 
Dale ! The white cat in London would 
certes scratch the Virginia kitten.” 

And so that trick of the High Marshal 
comes to this conclusion.* 

* Todkill’s account of this singular embassy is identical with Ha- 
mer’s in the work before mentioned, A True Discourse of the Es- 
tate of Virginia. Lady Dale, wife of Sir Thomas, is there men- 
tioned as then living. 


The London 
cat and Vir- 
ginia kitten. 



XXIII. 

My Lady goes to England. 

Homeward TV T OW this year, 1616, Sir Thomas 
1 Dale, our valiant Governor, would 
go back to England and take my Lady Po- 
kahontas with him, to show the first-fruits 
of God’s mercy in converting these poor 
heathen to the knowledge of our blessed 
Saviour. 

My Lady goes willingly, and Master 
Rolfe and her boy with her, whereto Pow- 
hatan joins one of his people, called Utta- 
matomakkin, to count the English with a 
notched stick (which he throws away after 
a little while). And, further, this savage 
was to know if Captain Smith were dead ; 
whereof a strange bruit comes to us, and so 
to him, that his old friend still liveth. But 
they would not tell my Lady Pokahontas. 

So toward early spring of the said year 
(161 6) we embark for England, for I would 
go back with my Lady ; and soon we drop 
down the great river, and so out of the 
capes into the wide ocean. Certes I was 


My Lady Pokahontas 157 

sorrowful at this going away from the Vir- 
gin land, and stood quiet nigh the helm, 
looking where the sun was setting, and 
thinking my thoughts of the old days and 
God’s good providence, above all in send- 
ing succour in that woful Starving Time. 

“ He that shall but turn up his eye,” I 
say, standing on the ship, “ and behold but 
the spangled canopy of heaven above him, 
must needs see God’s mercy, and how He 
inclineth all things to the help of them 
that trust in Him.” 

Thus saying in a low voice full of thanks 
and praise, as I stood in the dusk light on 
the ship, I was ware of some one weeping, 
and turned and saw my Lady not far from 
me. She sits looking back to Virginia, her 
face lying in her hand, and her body shak- 
ing. Whereat, thinking not to disturb 
her, I go away softly, leaving her to her 
thoughts. 

Now with favouring winds we come to 
Plymouth in England, and the bruit goes 
abroad that the princess Pokahontas is on 
board the ship, and Sir Thomas Stukely, 
the Company’s man, comes and bows low 
to her.* Then a lord arrives post haste 
from London, bearing a message from his 


We come to 
Plymouth. 


* This person afterwards took charge of Pokahontas’ son. 


158 My Lady Pokabontas 

My Lady’s Majesty, who would see my Lady Pokahon- 

fav° ur . tag ^ and receive her near him as a royal 
princess, with due honour to the blood 
royal (though she be a savage). 

So we go to London, and take lodging 
at Brentford, nigh the great city and the 
palace of Kew, whereto resort many of the 
fine gentlemen and ladies to visit my prin- 
cess become a great personage. The King 
would have her with him, and meets her 
with gracious words, giving orders she 
shall be well placed at the masques, and 
attended royally. Thither she went, and 
to the Globe Theatre too (whereof more 
anon), and was much liked of her Majesty 
the Queen, who kisses her on both cheeks 
and calls her “my child,” smiling gra- 
ciously. Master Rolfe goes with her, but 
is not received with such honours : no, not 
so much as with the least favour, most of 
all by his Majesty the King. 

At the first reception of my Lady, her 
husband goes with her, and his Majesty 
comes and raises her when she would 
kneel, looking at her kindly. But when 
Master Rolfe bends knee too before him, 
his royal face grows of a sudden very 
black. The King knits together his eye- 
brows and says, grunting out his anger : — 


My Lady Pokahontas 759 

“ Would you ! would you ! Who would 
have you, for a false loon, marry a princess, 
when nothing but my subject, and never 
say even ‘ By your leave ’ ! ” 

Whereat he sudden turns his back on 
him, puffing and showing him other dis- 
courtesy; and Master Rolfe, much abashed, 
goes back to the crowd and is no more 
seen that day.* 

Never saw I such honour paid any mortal 
as my little Lady. Sudden she grows the 
fashion, and my Lord Bishop of London 
gives a great entertainment at his palace 
of Lambeth to her honour ; whereof Mas- 
ter Pepys is heard to say ’t is the finest 
he has ever seen there. Ever to Brent- 
ford come fine coaches by day and night, 
with earls and ladies, footmen and outrid- 
ers, and flambeaux carried in front, to visit 
my Lady. They all go away praising her, 
and saying they have seen many English 
ladies worse favoured, proportioned, and 
behavioured. 

“ Pardie,” I hear my Lord la Ware say 
to his honourable Lady, as they get back 
to their coach, “ She is a wonder, this 
young princess, and ’t is easy to see her 

* This displeasure of James I., which is given by Stith, the old 
historian, as a “ constant tradition ” in Virginia, is thus verified by 
Todkill. 


Master Rolfe 
bis disfa- 
vour. 


Smith i 
dead. 


160 My Lady Pokahontas 

not blood be royal. She carrieth herself as the 
daughter of a King ! ” * 

My Lady takes all quietly, with much 
content and satisfaction, but ever I see on 
her face what brings back to me the mem- 
ory of the month of August in her Vir- 
ginia, when the fields are bright at one 
moment, but sudden a cloud shadow floats 
over, and they are darkened. The bruit 
comes Smith is not dead, and I remember 
when she first set eyes on him, though she 
(then) had no speech with him ; whereof 
this further relation will show the time and 
place. 

One day comes a message from the 
Queen’s Majesty ; there will be a Virginia 
play at the Globe Theatre : Master Shake- 
speare’s “ Tempest,” whereof the stage is 
the Bermudas islands, now by charter f a 
part of Virginia. Her Majesty is going, 
and indeed has commanded the play, and 
would have my Lady Pokahontas be pres- 
ent too. 

“ Content: say to the Queen I will at- 
tend her,” says my little Lady with her 
royal air (she speaks good English now 
for a long time). So the lord that brings 

* This seems to have been the general comment at the time on the 
bearing of Pokahontas. 
t The new charter of 1612. 


My Lady Pokahontas 161 

the message bows low, and goes away ; My Lad/s 
and my Lady says, “ You must go too, angutsb ' 
Anas.” 

“ What ! I, a good Puritan, seek a play- 
house ! That were a sin,” I say laughing; 
but my Lady will not smile. She looks so 
sorrowful that my heart bleeds, and says 
lowly : — 

“ I would go away, if only in my heart, 
from this London, and be in Virginia, if 
but for a poor hour, and forget myself.” 

She stops and muses, with her eyes 
moist, and a sudden blush. 

“ They say he is not dead ! ” she whis- 
pers. 

“ Not dead ? Who has told you that ? ” 

I cry, knowing she meaneth Smith. 

“ I have but now learned the truth,” she 
says, speaking with a great sob and cover- 
ing her face. “ O me ! why am I not dead 
— sith he lives ! ” 

Whereat she bendeth down and crieth, 
and I (lest I do likewise) go out hastily. 

ii 


XXIV. 


The Play- 
house. 



I go to the Globe Theatre. 

T OWARD evening, nigh sunset, comes 
a coach sent by the Queen’s Majesty, 
with four horses and flambeau-bearers, to 
take my Lady to the play. None is in 
the big coach, whereof the laced footman 
bows low as he bangs to the door, but my 
Lady Pokahontas and Master Rolfe, with 
myself, Anas Todkill. 

Sure this was tempting Providence, to 
venture into that abode of sin called a 
play-house, which the Puritan hateth ; but 
then this “ Tempest” of Master Shake- 
speare were doubtless a goodly spectacle ! 
and if I, Anas Todkill, grow ever to be a 
preacher warning the brethren against sin, 
certes, knowledge of the Devil’s wiles and 
how he ensnareth souls would be to the 
purpose. So (in short) I went to the Globe. 

The play-house was even then filled, my 
Lady’s coming being no doubt known ; and 
in the rooms around the gallery in front, 



My Lady Pokahontas 163 

over which was a thatched roof, sat many Her Majesty 
noble lords and ladies in grand dresses, 
with jewels on them, among the rest my 
Lord Southampton, the friend and patron 
of Master Shakespeare. Below these, in the 
open space which is uncovered, stood the 
common sort, drinking beer and smoking 
tobacco pipes, and ever taking these from 
their mouths to look up to the gentry and 
talk of them. 

The stage in front had two curtains 
opening in the middle, and through that 
opening was seen the tapestry and the 
raised balcony behind, with two private 
rooms on either hand for great people at- 
tending the play. One of these was fitted 
up royally for her Majesty, who would at- 
tend on this evening : and my Lady Poka- 
hontas with Master Rolfe and myself were 
shown to it. 

Now the night was near come, and the 
flambeaux were lighted around, and at last 
a great stamping and shouting says the 
Queen is here. She enters with her at- 
tendants (but not his Majesty); and, kiss- 
ing my Lady on both sides her face, bids 
the players come in and begin. 

Many, doubtless, that read this relation 
have seen acted this great play of the 


164 My Lady Pokahontas 

TheTempest. “ Tempest.” A decade before, the worthy 
reader will remember, Smith talked with 
Master Shakespeare thereof at the Mermaid 
Tavern ; and now the play was writ That 
talk of the Isles of Devils put the Ber- 
mudas in Master Shakespeare’s head,* and 
from Master Strachey’s book, the “Wrack 
and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates,” he 
gets his story. See how the English fleet 
(save the Sea-Venture ) gets safe to the 
Chesapeake Bay ; and Shakespeare’s fleet 
(save the King’s ship) to the Mediter- 
ranean flote. Master Strachey tells of the 
strange light that burned on the masts and 
yards of the S ea- Venture ; and tricksy 
Ariel , saith he, flamed amazement on the 
topmast , the yards and bowsprit ; and hid 
the Kings ship in the still vex'd Bermoo - 
thes , which the Spaniard calleth our Ber- 
mudas.\ 

Sure never was greater writer than this 
Master Will Shakespeare, who passeth 
quick from that terrible Lear and the woes 
of Hamlet to the merriest fancies. No 
sooner stalketh by mournful Macbeth than 

* Todkill here forgets that before the meeting' at the Mermaid. 
Shakespeare had already been impressed by the “still vex’d Ber- 
moothes ” as a fit stage for a weird drama. 

t Todkill here verifies an interesting fact — that the wreck of the 
Sea - Vettture suggested the Tempest. 


My Lady Pokahontas 165 

Touchstone comes laughing : and that mad Tbe stage. 
knight Sir yoh7t Falstaff waddles close on 
gibing Richard. Oft I wept, or shouted 
with laughter, seeing these — but what 
write I ? There cometh the cat forth of a 
sudden from the bag. Anas Todkill a fre- 
quenter of the play-house ! But be honest 
(I say), Anas ; and then thou wert away 
from thy home, in big London, and thy 
bad exemplar not seen ; when the days to 
preach of these deadly sins cometh, thou 
wilt know and denote such truly.* 

Sitting in the room beside the balcony, 
my Lady Pokahontas would listen mod- 
estly while her Majesty talked to her, an- 
swering quietly, with simple mien, as of a 
poor maiden, but yet a King’s daughter too. 

The stage was full of gallants, who would 
sit on stools by the side tapestries, and 
smoke tobacco pipes, ever laughing. When 
the boys anon passed, dressed as women 
(for there be no true women on our stage 
in England), these same gallants would 
pluck them by the sleeve, and make as 
though they would steal kisses ; whereat 
my Lady would laugh a little, and say she 
marvelled they were so ill-mannered. But 

* This reflection, from its repetition, seems to have afforded much 
comfort to Master Anas Todkill. 


Mad-caps. 


1 66 My Lady Pokahontas 

the maid of honour that sat by her whis- 
pered “They were mad-caps, and ever 
would do with herself the same, in the very 
Queen’s palace.” 


And meet again with Captain Smith and 
Master Shakespeare. 



IGHT had come now a long time, uonpareiia. 


1 and the flambeaux were spouting 
out smoke, and the crowd below was 
shouting and moving to and fro, most at 
Caliban. 

He had a hump on his back, and would 
growl and laugh like a dog barking, show- 
ing great tushes ; so that the crowd would 
cry out he was hag-born, a divell — and 
would Ariel the little sprite but play him 
some trick. 

My Lady looks most at Ariel , but sud- 
den listens when Caliban saith Prospero 
calleth Miranda his Nonpareil. Thereat 
she turneth a little white, and her bosom 
under her ruff rises and falls like two 
waves, and she catcheth her breath. 

Why is this (I say) ; what aileth my Lady ? 
But quick I know that she thinketh of one 
who called her the Nonpareil of Virginia — 


She sees 
ber soldier 
again. 


1 68 My Lady Pokahontas 

my dear and noble Captain, once her love. 
He would ever call her such, saying the 
whole world had not her like ; and she 
laughed one day in Virginia, and said : — 

“ Then her name was not Matoaka since 
he had called her Nonpar ella!' 

And now the name strikes her sudden 
and woful, as she hears it in the play. 

I bend over, and looking close at her say 
in a low voice : — 

“ What would you ? I know who hath 
been with Master Shakespeare, and of 
whom he hath been talking.” 

At that her head droops down and she 
studies the floor for a little while, growing 
quiet as she museth. But a new thing to 
try my Lady's strength is to come. Across 
the balcony of the stage was, I said, a sec- 
ond private room, with tapestry in front, 
facing the Queen’s. Up to nigh the end 
of the play this room was not open, and 
the tapestry in its front hung down, hiding 
the inner. Now this was thrust back, and 
running on a stick made some noise, 
whereat I look thither, and see in the 
shadow Master Shakespeare and Captain 
Smith. 

I look sudden to my Lady, and see she is 
looking too. She is white as her smock, 


My Lady Pokahontas 169 

and trembles a little, with her eyes fixed 
on Smith. Sudden she puts her hand on 
my arm and whispers faint : — 

“ He is not dead, you see ; it was a lie 
they told ! He is not dead ! he is not 
dead ! ” 

“ It is he himself and no other ” (these 
words I could only say in a voice well nigh 
stifled) ; “ and look ! he sees you. Certes 
he comes to-night to see two Nonpar ellas 
at the play.” 

Smith was nigh lost in the shadow of the 
tapestry, but I could see his face. He was 
no older to my eyes, for men like this are 
always young, methinks. The broad fore- 
head showed some care, but the eyes were 
clear, and the long mustachios that he 
ever wore could not hide the frank mouth 
whereon was writ his nature. He was look- 
ing at my Lady Pokahontas with a long, 
still gaze, and then I knew he had heard 
she was coming, and had come himself to 
see her. Sudden I rose up. 

“You would go see him?” my Lady 
says in a whisper. 

“ Certes ; my heart beats at very sight 
of him.” 

“ And mine,” she says shaking. “ Tell 
him — no, tell him nothing ! ” 


He sees her 
too. 


jjo My Lady Pokahontas 

i go quick to And with a great sob she turns away 

and leans back in shadow. 

I go out and meet a play-man, who tells 
me how I may come to the room where 
Smith is. I near stumbled down a trap 
wherefrom rises the ghost of Hamlet and 
such other unearthly shapes, and got to 
the room and went in. Smith was leaning 
to one side in the shadow of the curtain, 
but Master Shakespeare sate erect, smiling 
courteously as friends saluted him from 
the theatre below. 

I touched Smith on the shoulder, and 
turning round he says, low : — 

“ Is it thou, Anas ? ” 

“Your old soldier and henchman; yes, 
I say.” 

“None was ever truer,” he says, in a 
strange, altered voice. “ I saw you yonder, 
and my Lady Rebecca.” 

He spoke so coldly that I marvelled, and 
said : — 

“ Why call you her the Lady Rebecca ? 
That is her name with the court people, 
but certes with you she is the blessed Po- 
kahontas.” 

Thereat he colours up and groans. 

“It is the same,” he says, “since I am 
now naught to her. But no more of that, 


My Lady Pokahontas lyi 

Anas, — or here at least ; this is no place 
for speech. I came hither to-night to see 
her, having no strength to meet her and 
talk with her ; but I have writ the Queen 
of her great merit and how she saved us.” 

“ Not meet and talk with her ! ” I say ; 
“ not with her, thy saviour ? ” 

“ My undoer ! ” he saith groaning. “ But 
this hubbub killeth speech. I know you 
lodge at Brentford, which is not so far, 
and, if you please, we will walk thither 
after the play. Shall we ? ” 

“ Yes, indeed.” 

“ I will tell you my mind, then. I am 
going away soon, and come but in time to 
get a last look of my Lady the Princess. I 
lodge at the Mermaid , and my friend Mas- 
ter Shakespeare, coming to London, meets 
me there. This in front of us is he ; sure 
you remember him, since you once talked 
with him.” 

The noise of the theatre was such as 
kept Master Shakespeare from hearing us. 
Now his name being spoken behind him 
he turns round quick and I am face to face 
with him. 

He is clad in a slashed doublet with 
plain ruff, and shows some bravery : but 
’t was not this man’s clothes that people 


Sweet Will 
Shakespeare 
once more . 


ij2 My Lady Pokahontas 

Whereof he looked at, but his face. Never saw I face 
talked with £^^1^ or sm ile sweeter. He wears 

a mustache, and a pointed beard on his 
chin (we now call a royale), and is growing 
bald ; but that only better shows his won- 
drous forehead, that piled -up mountain 
whence he dug Macbeth and Lear. Once 
’t was hard to fancy he had ever a serious 
thought, or cared for aught save some gay 
conceit ; but I see now what seemeth a 
shadow on his face. 

“ Is it somewhat that hath troubled him 
(I say) as the time hath gone on ? ” 

But his old courtesy is unchanged, and 
his fine-filed phrase, ever as he speaks, is 
the same. He knows me quick, though 
’t is more than a decade since that day at 
the Mermaid tavern, and shakes my hand, 
calling me by name. 

So I had lived all these years in Vir- 
ginia ? (he saith smiling.) Would he him- 
self could have left this England, which 
bustleth so, and ventured under the west 
wind to that land of lands ! The Fount of 
Youth was to be found there, people said, 
which he would fain try, since he grow- 
eth old and bald now ! (he laugheth and 
pointeth to his forehead). Is yonder truly 
the Princess Pokahontas ? he asks. His 


My Lady Pokahontas 173 

friend Captain Smith hath told him how she 
once saved him, and he hath figured her in 
his Miranda , that is, One to be wondered at; 
as see where Miranda cries, “ Beseech you, 
father ! Sir, have pity ; I ’ll be his surety ! ” 
when Prospero would smite down Ferdinand 
as Powhatan would smite Smith. This Fer- 
dinand is Smith, he says laughing, though 
a king’s son ; and Caliban is a deformed 
Indian, one Rawhunt, whereof Smith hath 
oft told him ; which Caliban saith in the 
play that Duke Prospero calleth Miranda 
his “ Nonpareil,” which is what Captain 
Smith calleth the Lady Pokahontas. 

With such pleasant talk Master Will 
Shakespeare leaneth back, smiling; and I 
scarce believe that this is really he that writ 
the terrible-mournful “ Othello,” “ Lear,” 
and “ Hamlet.” He is just the same as other 
people ; and when Master Heminge, one of 
the players, comes in to talk with him of 
printing his plays, he laughs and trifles 
the time, saying ’t is a small matter ; he 
will think of it. And when Master Hem- 
inge urges him, Master Shakespeare crieth 
with mock earnest : “ Away ! life is but a 
shadow!” and that he hath more important 
business, which is to go back to Stratford 
and see how grow certain calves of his ! 


Our talk 
endetb. 


174 


My Lady Pokahontas 

So at last the play ends ; and Master 
Shakespeare gets up and says Will we go 
to the Mermaid tavern, where he lodgeth, 
and empty a cup of sack with him ? Fain 
would I, Anas Todkill, Puritan though I be, 
go with this writer of plays, had not the 
meeting with Smith moved me so. He, 
too, would talk with me, so we tell Mas- 
ter Shakespeare another time, whereof my 
regret remaineth still. 

For ’t was the last sight I ever had of 
that wonder of the time and all times (I 
think). He was never in London more. 
On the next day he rides, as I hear, for 

Stratford, and the same month dies of 
a fever there. So we lost him 
that was our delight, and all 
England, nay the world, 
holdeth not to-day 
his like. 



XXVI. 

How Smith telleth he was not dead, and crieth, 
“ O Heaven ! could she not wait?” 

T HE Queen goes from the theatre now, 
and ere long my Lady Pokahontas, 
and Master Rolfe too, in their coach to 
Brentford. I go not with ’em, making ex- 
cuse to my Lady, who looks at me with a 
long look. The flambeaux light her face 
for but a moment, and then she is gone. 

With Smith I walk back to Brentford ; 
and to-day, shutting my eyes, I can see 
and hear all things on this night, which 
was April and a bright moon shining. 

We talk long, walking slow, and Smith 
tells me all. He went away from Virginia 
loving the Lady Pokahontas with his heart 
of hearts (“ with every drop of blood in 
my heart, Anas ! ” he crieth groaning), and 
thinking she loves him ; but now see what 
cometh ! When he went he was sore tor- 
mented by his hurt on the boat coming 
from the Falls, and needeth a chirurgeon ; 


Back to 
Brentford. 


Smith tells 
me all. 


ij6 My Lady Pokahontas 

but most he went to London to confound 
his enemies. Then he would come back to 
Virginia and take Pokahontas for his. But 
ever (he said) his enemies fretted him, 
and kept him fighting ’em for his very 
good name, till he was well nigh in despair. 
He would not stay longer in London then, 
and sets out in a ship for Virginia ; but off 
the Azores is made prisoner by a French 
ship and carried to Rochelle, when he is 
reported dead and scarce escapes with his 
life to England.* 

Thereat I smite my hands together and 
cry : — 

“ This news cometh to Virginia, and the 
Lady Pokahontas is in despair ! ” 

“ Is it so ? ” he saith, with a grim look. 
“ Nay, this thing hight the heart of a wo- 
man scarce hath time to despair, ere some 
brave new lover cometh ! ” 

“Thou art unjust! ” I cry. “When the 
rumour cometh, it well nigh breaketh her 
heart ! ” 

“ Is it so ? ” he saith again. “Well, my 
own near breaks when the bruit comes to 

* This was possibly the origin of the rumour of Smith’s death. He 
says in the General History that going in a boat to Rochelle “ the 
Captain was drowned and half his company the same night : and ere 
long many of them that escaped drowning told me the tiewes they 
heard of my owtie death.” 


My Lady Pokabontas iyy 

me she is married to Rolfe. 0 Heaven ! His woful 
could she not wait ? ” ialk ' 

“ She thought thee dead.” 

“ Or he maketh her think it ! ” 

“ I wot not. So far as I know he think- 
eth likewise. All in the colony believe it, 
and my Lady hideth herself in despair. She 
goes to Potomac, not to live in the midst of 
places you and she were together in, and 
Argali, that hawk, goes and betrays her ; 
and when she comes to Jamestown it is 
said by all that you are dead.” 

Thereat he hangs his head, and, musing, 
says in a low voice : — 

“ Is it even so ? ” 

No more ; and I add these words : — 

“ Blame her not, worthy friend and 
Captain. Long she mourned for thee, 
and would not listen to this Master Rolfe 
or any other : of which thou shalt have 
proof.” 

Whereat I tell him all, and of that last 
meeting with her at the Place of Retreat. 

He listens, silent, with his brows knit pit- 
eously and his breast heaving. I see the 
moonlight on his face, and hear him groan. 

“ Be it so,” he saith at last ; “ this is the 
end, Anas.” 

So no more of Pokahontas then, save that 


12 


ij8 My Lady Pokahontas 

He would he hath writ the Queen a letter telling of 
En g {and Nezv all her goodness to the Colony and him- 
self, and that he will come to see her ere 
long, and take his last greeting of her, at 
Brentford. Soon he will sail for New Eng- 
land, and were content to have it his last 
voyage; not to Virginia, — he will go there 
no more. 

Having come thus far to Brentford, hie 
leaves me and goes back to London, slow, 
in the moonlight. I stand looking after 
him for a long time, till his form is no 
more seen, and then I go home thinking. 
What I think to myself is this: “Were I to 
talk with Master Shakespeare and 
tell him this history, certes there 
were matter in it for a greater 
play than even his fine 
4 Tempest ’ ! ” 


$ 



XXVII. 

Of the Valiant Captain Smith's Last Greeting 
with my Lady Pokahontas. 

N OW to end this true relation of my smith conut 
Lady and her soldier, the next day Lady. my 
Smith comes to Brentford with divers cour- 
tiers and other his acquaintances, seeking 
to have it believed ’t is only a visit as of any 
one to this married Princess (no longer his 
love, but a Christian woman, having nought 
to do with that now). 

He goes not in at first with my Lord 
Southampton and the rest, — this South- 
ampton being the same whereto Master 
Shakespeare writes his famed sonnets. 

Smith draws me apart to the garden, and 
says he will show me something ; then the 
rest being gone, he will speak a little with 
my Lady, and bid her farewell. We find 
a nook, and sit on a bench there, and he 
draws forth a paper. Therewith he heaves 
a great sigh and says : — 

“ How sorrowful is this world, Anas ! 

I thought to wed my little Princess, but 



180 My Lady Pokahontas 

His utter to ’t is vain now, and here is the end. But 

her Majesty . ^ g] 10w y QU this.” 

And he unwraps his paper, writ in his 
bold hand as though with his good sword’s 
point. 

“ Hearing the Virginia ship is at Plym- 
outh with my Lady and her husband,” he 
says, “ I fell into great amaze and wist not 
what to do, Anas. But to do duty is al- 
ways best, and I write this paper to her 
Majesty ; whereof hear these few words.” 

So he reads in a low voice, broke with 
sighs, this short discourse : — 

“ Most admired Queen, the love I bear 
my God, my King, and country hath so oft 
emboldened me in the worst of extreme 
dangers, that my honesty doth constrain 
me to present your Majesty this. That 
some ten years ago, being in Virginia and 
taken prisoner by Powhatan, their chief 
King, I received from this great savage ex- 
ceeding great courtesy, especially from his 
son Nantaquaus, the most manliest, come- 
liest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a savage, 
and his sister Pokahontas, the King’s most 
dear and well-beloved daughter, being but 
a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, 
whose compassionate, pitiful heart of my 
desperate estate gave me much cause to 


My Lady Pokahontas 181 

respect her. She hazarded the beating out 
of her own brains to save mine ; and not 
only that, but so prevailed with her father 
that I was safely conducted to James- 
town.” 

Here he stops and says, lowly : — 

“ Know you, Anas, that my enemies 
would say this is not true ? So they hate 
me for being Master yonder that I am per- 
force a brave liar ! I make up this story, 
though nought is here to my own honour, 
save it be to a soldier’s honour that a wo- 
man is pitiful to him.” 

“Your enemies say that?” I cry out. 
“Why at Jamestown we all know it, and 
my Lady tells it a thousand times, as do 
her wild train of people who came to the 
Fort with her ! ” 

“ That is nought ! I am a Gascon, and 
boast of what I have done ! ” he says, his 
voice sounding bitter. “Natheless, let the 
ill tongues wag. She herself is here to 
speak now, and may say if it be not true.” 

“Certes, that is the end of it, worthy 
Captain,” I say. 

“ I know not. The men I lashed from 
Virginia would destroy my character, Anas. 
They dare not face me, but will skulk, 
and write down that which at length, in 


His enemies 
would ma- 
lign him. 


Hi caretb 
not. 


182 My Lady Pokahontas 

the after time, will blacken my memory. 
Who knoweth ? After all my hazards in 
that great land of America, it may be that 
my memorial will perish with me, since I Ve 
writ nothing.” * 

“ Never ! ” I say. “ Fear not that, thou 
brave soldier and true heart.” 

“ Let it be so. I stand on mine own 
feet, and my life is my answer; now to 
finish these few words.” 

And he reads what follows from the 
paper writ to her Majesty. * 

“ And this relief, most gracious Queen, 
was commonly brought us by this Lady 
Pokahontas. Notwithstanding all these 
passages when inconstant fortune turned 
our peace to war, this tender virgin would 
still not spare to dare to visit us, and by 
her our jars have been oft appeased and 
our wants still supplied. (Thou knowest 
whether this be true or not, Anas.) Were 
it the policy of her father thus to employ 
her, or the ordinance of God thus to make 
her his instrument, or her extraordinary 
affection to our nation, I know not ; but of 
this I am sure. When her father, with the 
utmost of his policy and power, sought to 

* At this date Smith had published none of his works except his 
short letter, A True Relation ; and the extended narratives of the 
General History , afterwards, were by others. 


My Lady Pokahontas 183 

surprise me, having but eighteen with me, what my 
the dark night could not affright her from do™ /of us. 
coming through the irksome woods, and 
with watered eyes gave me intelligence 
with her best advice to escape his fury ; 
which, had he known, he had surely slain 
her. (Dost thou remember Anas, on York 
River, at that night supper ?) ” 

“Yes, I remember,” I say in answer. 

“Jamestown with her wild train (he con- 
tinueth reading) she as freely frequented 
as her father’s habitation ; and during the 
time of two or three years she, next under 
God, was still the instrument to preserve 
this Colony from death, famine, and utter 
confusion, which if in those times had 
once been dissolved, Virginia might have 
lain as it was at our first arrival to this 
day.” 

“ That is God’s truth ! ” I say. “ You put 
it in noble words, most worthy Captain.” 

“ Thus, most gracious Lady ” (Smith 
goes on reading), “however this might be 
presented you from a more worthy pen, it 
cannot from a more honest heart. As yet 
I never begged anything of the state or 
any, and it is my want of ability and her 
exceeding desert ; your birth, means, and 
authority ; her birth, virtue, want, and sim- 


She is now 
Lady Re- 
becca. 


184 My Lady Pokahontas 

plicity, doth make me thus bold humbly to 
beseech your Majesty to take this knowl- 
edge of the Lady Pokahontas ; and so I 
humbly kiss your Majesty’s gracious hands 
and rest.” 

Therewith Smith rolls up his paper, 
which he says is copied from what he writ 
the Queen when the ship with my little 
Lady comes to Plymouth. I listen to all 
this, not marvelling at his quick thought 
of her ; and see now, that this letter brings 
the Queen to knowledge of her, whence all 
her gracious acts to my Lady and her re- 
ception at Court. The man that loved her 
(Smith) stills his poor beating heart that 
she is married to another now, and does 
that he can for the blessed damozel that is 
gone from him. 

Now by this time it was nigh sunset and 
the courtiers were gone. Smith thinks he 
will go too, and asks, what good of speech 
with her ? He cannot meet her as in old 
days when she was little Pokahontas. 

“She is now Lady Rebecca,” he says, 
“and one of a royal family. His Majesty 
calls her cousin, and chides his subject 
Master Rolfe, I ’m told, for marrying a Prin- 
cess. Sure to be again familiar to her 
would hurt her in her new rank, to speak 


My Lady Pokabontas 185 

nothing of her husband, who little fancies They meet 
(I think) old loves ! ” ***• 

These bitter words he says, and heaves 
a sigh and then is quiet. 

“It is best,” he says lowly. “What so 
hard as to thus meet her that once was my 
sweetheart, and talk coldly to my Lady 
Rebecca ; I that fain would clasp her close 
and weep on her bosom ! So no more, 

Anas! I will go away. Take thou this 
paper and show it her.” 

“Show it her yourself,” I say; “here 
she is.” 

And indeed my little Lady, grown weary 
of the Court people and knowing not we 
were in the garden, walks for rest there 
and comes out suddenly from the bosk 
and sees us. Smith rises up quick and 
stands facing her in a great tremble. She 
is shaking too and comes on slow toward 
him, looking at him. Sudden she covers 
her face with her hands, and I see the 
tears stealing through her fingers. Smith 
goes to her and bows low, calling her my 
Lady Rebecca ; but thereat she cries : — 

“ No ! no ! call me not that, but what 
thou calledst me in Virginia ! ” 

Thereat Smith turns a little white and 
says in a strange voice : — 


Their lait 
greeting. 


1 86 My Lady Pokahontas 

“ I owe my Lady too much respect. Sure 
a married woman belongs to her lord, and 
the King hath forbid you to be treated 
save as a Princess. Forget the old times 
and remember the new. It were far 
better ! ” 

He speaks deep, well nigh groaning, but 
she wrings her hands and cries pitifully 
once more : — 

“ No ! no ! Thou didst call me ‘ child * 
once. I would be the same still ; and if 
‘child,’ then ‘father!’ Wouldst thou not 
have that? You did promise Powhatan 
what was yours should be his, and he the 
like to you. You called him ‘father,’ be- 
ing in his land a stranger ! ” 

Thereat a blush comes to her face as 
though thinking, Were I married to him 
then my father would be his, and my fa- 
ther’s child his wife ! 

But Smith, drawing a long breath, shakes 
his head and stands in a sort of quaking. 

“The child forgot one who loved her,” 
he says, speaking very low. 

And she in a voice yet lower : — 

“ They did tell me always you were dead, 
and I knew no other till I came to Plym- 
outh.” 

Whereat her face grows so white that 


My Lady Pokahontas i8y 

I think she will faint ; but she stands And so thty 
straight and looks at him out of her great par *' 
black eyes, that are swimming in tears, as 
though her heart were breaking. 

Sudden I, Anas Todkill, remembering 
myself, go away from these two people. 

Lost in amaze I had stood thus far scarce 
knowing I listened. Now I turn round 
and slowly leave them, and they walk 
away each beside other ; and then the 
bosk of the wood taketh them, and they 
are no more seen. 

What said they each to other ? I know 
not nor would know. Sure the secrets of 
these two hearts were their own, and, as 
’t were, sacred. After an hour they come 
back slowly, and I can see my Lady has 
been weeping. Smith is pale, and his voice 
shakes as he bows low and goes away; 
and then my Lady steals to her bower and 
is no more seen that night. Master Rolfe 
plays chuck-farthing with a friend, asking 
“ Who ’s been to-day ? ” And I go out in 
the moon that is shining and look up to 
my Lady’s window, and say, “ Write me 
a great drama, O worthy Master Shake- 
speare ! Thou dost sound the human heart 
— canst thou sound these two ? ” 


My Lady 
wouldreturn 
to Virginia. 



XXVIII. 

How my Lady Pokahontas passed in Peace. 

I T is little I have to add now to this true 
relation of my Lady Pokahontas. After 
that last greeting with him she had once 
loved she fell into a great melancholy ; and 
save for thoughts of her religion I think 
she had pined away then, and so ended. 
But her faith kept her from despairing, 
and she would talk always of going back 
to Virginia. Her own people were to be 
converted, and she would be God’s instru- 
ment, — wherefore in the very beginning 
of this poor discourse I writ the words, 
that the fabric of that great business fell 
in her grave. 

Natheless, always she had it at heart, 
in that autumn and the winter that follow- 
eth; seeming no more to think of Smith 
(now made by his Majesty Admiral of New 
England), but dreameth what she may do, 
as a poor servant of the Lord Christ. 

Oft I hear her whisper “ Virginia ! ” as 


My Lady Pokahontas 189 

one musing in her mind : and once she But fails 
toucheth me with her small hand, and rais- asUep * 
ing her black eyes to my face, saith low, 
with faint smiles : “ Come thou with me, 

Anas ! ” 

Certes, I had gone with her on that voy- 
age they made ready for : but, sudden (as 
I said) my little Lady set forth on another. 

It fell (so God willed) in the March 
month of the year of our blessed Lord 
1617, at Gravesend. My Lady had gone 
thither to embark for Virginia, carrying 
the blessing of his grace the Bishop of 
London on her intent in her own country. 

But she never was to see the fair fields of 
Virginia more. A fever takes her and she 
sinks suddenly, but is resigned to God’s will 
and blesses his name. I was close to her 
when she died, and signing the people to 
leave her she whispers to me : — 

“You will love my boy, Anas,” she says, 
in a voice I scarce hear ; “ and say to some 
one , thou knowest who, he must love and 
cherish him too for his poor mother.” 

Thereat she looks up and joins her two 
white hands together. 

“Blessed Jesus, thou wilt have me!” 
she whispers, and comes a sudden still- 
ness. My Lady is ended. 


i go My Lady Pokahontas 

she passed She lies buried in the chancel of the 
mpeaee. church of Gravesend, there waiting 

the resurrection, when the secrets of all 
hearts shall be known. This one was so 
white that I think no stain be there to 
wash. But natheless, if there be, Christ’s 
blood will take it away ; since whether 
a poor maid in Virginia, or a 
royal princess in England, my 
little Lady trusted in 
Him, and passed in 
peace. 

h 


(Writ by Anas Todkill, Puritan and Pil- 
grim, sometime her henchman, who commend - 
eth to all good people this True Relation 
1618 .) 





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